Warning grid too far

Hello ! 

I’ve searched the forum and i didn’t find any answer . 

I’m working with an ipad mini4 with a Mavic/Inspire X5 and i can’t get the “Ignore Homepoint” to work . 
It keep saying that i’m too far from the center of the grid . (tried to restart the ipad /drone ) 

In this particular case i can’t get closer because it’s a steep valley .

I’ve managed to get the mission done with my android phone and the advanced mode , but is there a way to get the "advanced " mode working on iOS ? 

Furthermore is there a way to bypass the “too far” warning ? 

Thanks ! :) 

Hi Baptiste,

Besides the home point distance limitation, there is also a safety lock that prevents the drone from starting if its current location is further than 250 m away from the center of the grid. The current location is either on the ground or in the air hovering (e.g. the drone starts a second mission right after the first without coming back to the user). To bypass this limitation, the user has to take off manually and fly the drone closer to the grid before tapping the green button to initiate the flight (in the takeoff checklist).

Regards,

Hello!

I have detected a strange behavior of the tool for IOS, when I plan a circular mission with a Parrot Bebop2.
If you define an angle of taking images less than 8 degrees, when I try to send the mission to the team and start it usually reports two errors. The camera is not available and you can not send the mission to the drone.

Just by increasing the angle between shots this error does not appear.

I take this opportunity to comment on a much appreciated difference between the Android and IOS version of Pix4DCapture. The zoom on the cartography in the case of Android is a little greater than in IOS, for small missions it is appreciated to have more zoom.

It also detects difference in the minimum height configuration allowed for the mission between a drone DJI mavic pro and a Parrot Bebop2. In the first they are 10 meters and in the second from 5 meters.

Best regards

Miguel A

Hi Miguel,

It is possible the app is restrictive regarding the overlap you choose, because such a big overlap (<8° between images) can greatly increase flight time. The fact that the issue disappears when you increase the overlap value points to this. 
Could you try planning a very small circular mission and set the overlap to less than 8° to see if it works?

Keep in mind that the Bebop 2 drone has a fisheye camera, meaning a very wide field of view. For this kind of camera, the overlap between images is very large by default and you should not need to resort to such small overlap values.

Regarding the basemap providers: they are different for Android and iOS, which explains the different zoom capabilities. If you feel you have trouble accurately planning your missions on iOS, do you think being able to import .kml/.kmz files would help you?
You can follow and comment on this thread where other users are asking for this feature. You can also read about this feature that we have already implemented on Android here.

Indeed, the minimum flight height is different for Parrot and DJI drones. The reason for that is that the Parrot drones Bebop 2 and Bluegrass are safer to fly, so we allow a lower flight height.

Finally, do not hesitate to create a new post if you do not find any topic related to your question on the community.

I hope this helps!

Hi Rhéa

 

I have  planned a circular mision for bebop2 at 5m of flight heigh, with a radius of ~10m and setting overlap of 8º o lower the the number of images taken, when theoretically they should be 45.

Thank you for your recomendations about kml/kmz files to define acurrate planning misions. But, how it is apply to circular missions?

Regards

 

Hi Miguel,

If I understand you well, you planned a small mission with an overlap of 8°. Could you fly it?
Could you plan a mission with the same radius but with a smaller overlap, like 4° for example, and tell me if it works?

I suggested the .kml/.kmz feature in the case you had trouble precisely drawing your flight on your mobile phone, especially since you cannot zoom as much as you would like on the basemap.
You can draw the boundary of your mission on Google Earth and then import it as a .kml file in your mission. You can also import a basemap in the .kmz format. This is possible for all types of missions.

Let me know.

Hi Rhéa

The behaviour of the application is not clear.

When i use Android version, i can define same mission with 4, 6, 8º, fast and save mode, etc… but with IOs I can not do it.

The problem with Andorid version is that i can not change vertical angle of the photos, the camera of Bebop2 is near to horizontal i can not change with the remote control. Then an issue.

For example if i use save mode in preflight check appear two waring that disable to send mission. If i change to fast mode with 10º the mission can start but not take 36 photos, only 13, 14, 15 photos are taken.

I have proved .kml file but the behaviuour is the same.

Then i have update firmware of Parrot Bebop2 today to 4.4.2 and the last version of Pix4DCapture in the iPad and the android tablet.

Regards

Hi Miguel,

My colleague Rhéa cannot follow up at the moment, so I will try to help.

The settings for the circular mission are the same for each OS and are explained here: Android and iOS.

Angle between images
In both OS, you can set the speed of the drone and the angle that separates consecutive images. That angle defines the side overlap between images. The narrower the angle, the more overlap.

Angle of the camera
The camera to always point to the ground at the center of the orbit (point of interest POI). Then, according to the flight height, the app will automatically adjust the angle at which the drone takes the pictures with respect to the POI. The higher you fly, the closer to the vertical the camera will point.

 

Regarding your comment, my understanding is the following.

  • For camera angle of less than 10°, the drone takes off and flies with Android but not on iOS. Could you share a screenshot regarding the iOS issue? Does it happen on Fast and Safe mode?
  • For camera angle of more than 10°, the drone takes off and flies with both systems but images are missing. Does it happen on Android and iOS? For iOS, does it happen on Fast and Safe mode?

I would suggest to check the recommendations of this article for an optimal experience:
https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/115004119343

The latest Pix4Dcapture versions are Android 4.1.1 and iOS 2.9.2.

Hi Julie,

I have instaled the lasted version of PixCapture in both OS.

To me is new that first we need to define POI using other applications (FreeFlight Pro or DJI Go 4).

It does not seem very logical and much less intuitive. One assumes that the POI should be the center of the defined ellipse, right?

The weather is not good these days: it rains, it snows …, I can not perform the test and generate the screenshot. But there should be several: the flight plan with the parameters, and the screen of the pre-take-off checks.
If I remember correctly, both in fast and safe mode with angles less than or equal to 8 degrees showed the two messages in the pre-take-off cheks: Camera not ready and could not send the mission to the team.

With the Android version this did not happen. The problem is that the command could not define the orientation of the camera and did not point to the center of the ellipse but approximately horizontally.

Best regards

Miguel

Hi Miguel,

I have reported your feedback about the circular mission workflow is not intuitive.
Please let me know how it goes after setting the POI with FreeFlight Pro prior to starting a circular mission.

Hi Julie

I used the Free Flight app on the iPad to set the POI in the mission center. Then I have made a take-off and landing thinking that this flight upload this data to the Parrot Bebop2.
After this, I closed the program and opened Pix4DCapture, selecting a circular mission at 5 meters high, with several tests of angle of capture and fast and safe mode.
With safe mode appears the screen that you will see attached when trying to start the mission.
When the safe mode is removed and an angle between 9º shots is defined, the mission can be executed but instead of taking 40 images it took 15.

Regards,
Miguel A

We had a look and indeed there is no need to manually set the POI for the circular mission since it is by default the center of the circular mission. Apologies for misunderstanding. 

The warning is most probably related to the mission size and number of waypoints. Decreasing the angle between the images (10° or less) results in many mission waypoints and this can result in the “Mission not uploaded to drone” warning. This is even more noticeable while using Safe mode since every image position is uploaded as a separate waypoint.

As for the “5 images captured instead of 40”, we would need to check the .log files to understand the behavior better. Does it happen everytime you plan the mission in fast mode? Is the spacing between the images regular or random?

Could you upload a .log file and indicate at what time did you fly the circular mission? More here: https://support.pix4d.com/hc/en-us/articles/215281483

At the moment we recommend you to use the Safe mode with more than 10° angle or fast mode (if the issue 15/40 is not present anymore). 

Best,