Could not be more simple, but...
Been quite awhile since I've had chance to do much with DL. But now, dusting off the ol' drone and wanting to run just a very simple orbit mission. Everything looks fine in preview but when sent over to Google Earth, does not look at al right. I expect given my rustiness I'm missing something simple?
https://app.dronelink.com/tim-b/meeker-winter/plan/GR3nw6ifVLbL94XOL7WY/p5O1mqAz042c65YOVfWh
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15 comments
Tim, it looks ok in Google earth here, what is it that you are seeing your end that doesn't look right?
Looks good on Google Earth on my iPad as well.
Well, as I said it's been awhile, but I took another look at this page to make sure but still weird. Even missions I made many months ago and exported to Earth don't seem be working. What happens is the kmz loads fine but the camera is not looking at the "target". More like just looking down -90 from the path of the orbit.
Given it seems to work fine for others, it must be something I'm doing, or not doing. Again, works just fine in DL Preview.
Possible Google Earth settings. Try resetting all to defaults and see if it works.
Mike (Arizona Wyldwest)
I had been doing quite a bit of work creating Google Earth tours and using Google Studio so thought perhaps somewhere along the line settings were screwy. But alas, reset everything I could find but no different.
It seems to be getting weirder. I can set a new, very basic orbit over, for example, the Statue of Liberty or the Capital Building in Albany, NY. Preview in DL and GE works as expected. However, when I try the exact same thing in other places, or try to reload a mission that had worked fine to this point, not so much. Can't for the life of me figure out how that's possible.
Here's a simple screen capture illustrating what I'm seeing. First DL preview then GE. Both speeded up 4x:
Here's a link to my last post above:
https://app.dronelink.com/tim-b/meeker-winter/plan/mgxxsd16tZjB71oOrwYP/XwsgJku5TZ1LJLdmoBTA
Plays fine in both apps on my phone👍
I wonder if this is a bit of an optical illusion. If you increase the radius to something like 400' while changing nothing else, you will see a lot more distance between the building and the drone. If you were truly looking down at -90° I do not think you would even see the building under the drone. Which I tried on your plan. It currently is -27°, but if you change to -90° or increase the radius you will see the difference.
It may be since the buildings in Google Maps appear flat, you do not see the sides as you would expect, so it seems to be looking straight down. As the others, I believe it is fine.
Okay, something may be amiss, but not sure what. If I export the KMZ to Google Earth it starts at an "Eye" altitude of 1758, and then goes up another 200' to 1958 (maybe not exact numbers.) So it is so high up it appears to be looking straight down. I have no idea what may cause it to begin that high. Is there an offset somewhere? I tried changing the settings in Google Earth to "clamp to ground" but that made no difference. I see the actual ground level/elevation is in the 3,800 foot range, but that should not matter? Normally when I use Google Earth I see the drone start nearly at ground level and rise up, here it is already 1,700 feet in the air looking down. Was the plan moved from somewhere that could effect this? Taking off from the top of a mountain since that affects the flight altitude? (Just kidding.)
Some setting is off, but as I said I do not know what.
ok, since i tried it on the phone earlier and it worked ok in both (preview showed a gimbal pitch of -45), the pitch has been changed to -90, so is now pointing straight down
if you delete that gimbal setting then it resorts to -45 and works as expected
I appreciate all input from everyone. Quite frustrating when something works for everyone-- but me! Starting to question my own sanity but it looks like Martin has pointed me in the right direction. For whatever reason, GE does not "respect" the mission gimbal setting.
But when folks here said it worked as expected on phone/tablet, I finally decided to try that. Something I should have done sooner but when I finally did, everything works fine in DL preview AND GE flight path. But still no go using GE on the PC with Win 11. My computer hates me.
No idea why but the I will try deleting GE completely on the PC and reinstalling and see if that makes any difference. Stay tuned, and thanks to all again...
Un-re Installed Google Earth, same problem. Looking around I discover they have a "Repair" tool? I thought I reset things earlier but did not use this tool. Ok, worth a shot. From that tool I ran these options:
Ran the Mission that did not work previously. Success. Everything works fine in DL preview and GE. Big relief.
Thanks again for the suggestions and I can only hope that my misadventures might help out someone else in the future with a similar issue!
Good to hear that you got sorted Tim B
👍🏼. Figured it was GE since all DL is doing is downloading the KMZ file to device or PC. Did not know there was a tool like that. Good info if I ever have similar issues.
Mike
Yeah, I guess I can chalk it up as one of those "I'll never know" things. Especially weird that all worked fine with new missions in some locations as I posted above, but not in others.
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