Automated Panoramas
Hi there! I was wondering if we could automate the panorama photos but with them being taken as fast as DJI Pilot 2 does it. Dronelink takes panos very slow. It takes roughly 3 minutes for a panoz to be taken, while it is around 30 seconds in the Pilot app.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
Cheers
Comments
30 comments
In that case pilot 2 must only be taking about 15 photos as the fastest most drones can capture is a photo every 2 seconds, whereas Dronelink takes about 27
Hi Martin, thanks for the reply. The M3E takes 25 individual images when creating a panorama in DJI Pilot 2.
I doubt that its as quick as 30 seconds then, as you'd need a super fast SD card to capture at that speed
The Pilot app takes the photos in columns, not rows right? We looked into this a few weeks back and created an experimental version of the DL Pano that used columns and it was about 50% faster. We haven’t released it yet but we may consider it if you think this would be valuable and aren’t dependent on the row-based version for some reason.
Welcome to the new age, Martin... The M3E takes LITERALLY 30 seconds to capture a panorama in DJI Pilot 2, the same as the M3 in its factory app.
Thanks for the reply, Jim. Yes, the pilot takes images in columns. If your new version of DL is 50% faster, it is much lower in comparison (I am willing to test it and show it to my boss) However, at the moment, Dronelink panos take 3 minutes to complete and, for the kind of jobs we're doing here in Qatar, that is an eternity for us. Even reducing its time to 1.5 minutes would still be too long.
It would be amazing if you could make it the same time as in DJI Pilot 2 but with Dronelink's amazing mission customization capabilities. You would have a permanent client with us for sure, and perhaps some others would join because (strangely) no one offers what we need.
360 panos or spheres are very quick using the DJI Fly as well with either my MA2 or Air 3. Curious if it is because the flight controller, firmware, software or whatever it uses to run those is not the same when using virtual stick. I don’t do a lot of these but since they can be done with the DJI app and even processed immediately I don’t see the need to use DL with the MA2. Just seems much simpler to me to use DJI app with no setup time or stitching. Just my 2 cents worth.
Hi Mike. We need DL for the panos because we need the pictures to be perfectly taken in the same way every week. We can only achieve this through automation. This way, we can use our software iHawk to deliver the client a perfect comparison of two panorama images.
I don't know if it is technically possible or not, but what we were looking for with Dronelink is that we could automate panos using its mission customization capabilities with the short time it takes for the panos to be taken using DJI Pilot 2. I really hope this could be achieved, otherwise we'll have to continue looking for a third-party app that can deliver it.
The only way to get it as fast as DJI is to do it onboard (similar to uploading waypoints), but that isn’t going to happen any time soon.
Understood Daniel. If you’re looking to have it fly to the exact same location every time to shoot the Pano then you may want to try a checkpoint component. All you would need to do is select hover at end of mission. This way it will fly to the same location every time and just hover. Then close DL and use the DJI app. The only extra time would be switching the apps but it would save a lot of time shooting as you know and it will process them at the same time which saves you time later. It may not be what you want but since it can’t be done faster at this time using the DL Pano it may help eliminate a couple minutes. Just thinking outside the box as they say. Good luck.
Hi Jim, that is too bad. We will continue using Dronelink's Growth plan, but we already have confirmation from another company that will implement this feature soon (as requested). It is not that hard, according to them.
Mike, that is exactly how I've been flying the Panos for the time being. However, this is not ideal in the long term, as sometimes we need to capture as much as 250 Panos in a day, so automation is imperative for us. Thanks for the suggestion, though!
It isn’t the complexity of the feature that is the issue. We are just working on other features right now for companies that are paying us to prioritize their features. If this is something you are interested in you can send a message to sales@dronelink.com.
I see. Good luck with those features for the paying customers. Thanks!
You can try the Public 360 Photo component which DL has. With that one you’re able edit anything and set camera up the way you want. I Checked yesterday and it shoots the actual 360 in 1-1/2 minutes compared to the 2-1/2 minutes according to the mission preview.
Hi Mike. Thanks for your reply once again. UgCS is looking into implementing this in their app.
As I said before, we need the panos to be taken in 30 seconds because our volume of work is huge.
Fortunately, someone in the business still understands that having great features makes a drone app great. Cheers!
Ok.
Looked over the info and the Mavic 3E isn’t supported so back to the drawing board. Looks like no MSDK 5 drone is supported just legacy drones which have onboard waypoints. Rather expensive as well. Good luck.
Hey Mike. The M3E is supported by our DL Growth professional license. As I said, UgCS is not seeing this as a problem, so hopefully they will provide this feature in their app soon.
Also, a big letdown for us is that we can't use Dronelink offline, so moving on to other options. Thanks for all the replies!
Yes Daniel I know DL supports the Mavic 3E. I was taking about the UgCS app you talked about. I’d look over it as I did not see the Mavic 3E supported as well as many others. All of the ones they support use onboard waypoints. So even if they build an pano component which is a bit faster it won’t work with your drone. Also you can use any plan off-line if you download it. Good luck.
Hey Mike. Sorry, I did not understand what you meant. The Mavic 3 Enterprise IS supported by UgCS. You can see it here: https://www.sphengineering.com/flight-planning/ugcs?page-j4dj=2#supported-drones
I am aware that we can use the flight plans offline, but they need to be created online and our client does not allow us to upload any flights. Once again, UgCS offers that feature. So does Map Pilot, for example. In my humble opinion, these all are things that Dronelink should consider including (without having to pay them to do so). But hey, I'm just a drone pilot!
We hope to eventually get around to everything, of course, but other features are higher priority right now, mostly due to people paying to bump the priority higher.
Hey Jim, that's great news! We understand that people paying has priority, of course, this is a business.
We will keep an eye on DL to see when these features are included and consider getting our growth license back.
Until then, I'm afraid DL it's just not useful for us.
Looking forward to seeing future updates! Cheers
Ok, I see it’s a different app than I saw which didn’t support it. Still a lot of money but hope it works out.
Yes Mike, it is more expensive, but it also offers the possibility of buying a perpetual license.
I'm a bit late to this party but I'm curious about panoramas on the M3E. First off, the earlier comment about requiring a fast SD card is kind of funny. The M3E can snap a jpg every 0.7 seconds during a mapping mission no problem. I'm wondering about panos in raw form though. This would slow down the capture process but is it possible? Pilot 2 doesn't have this option but does DL? Thanks
Hi John. Usually when shooting in both JPEG +RAW the interval time needs to be at a minimum of 3 seconds or it will fail due to the extra time needed to process all the extra data regardless of what type of component. I just looked at the Pano component and when you run the mission preview the time after each photo capture is about 4 seconds so I would think it will work. If for some reason it won’t you can use that DL public 360 Photo component I mentioned above and set it up the way you want with a wait command that is enough time before each capture. I think it will work fine and DL probably created the Pano with this in mind. Give it a try as these don’t take long to test. The worst that could happen is it would fail with a message something like interval time failure or cannot capture.
Hi, Jim redirected me to this thread. I have a recurring construction mission that has Waypoint, Orbit and Pano components - about 8 Panos. The Pano's have to be precisely placed on a recurring basis. DL would be ideal for thisI I want to fly with an Air2S since it has a 20 MP camera and the DJI Fly app supports Panos natively including stitching. I know the DL Panos just capture the individual Still images without stitching and know this process takes a long time compared to the lightning fast DJI Pano quickshot component. My question and desire is to have DL Fly to the precise, repeatable locations (8) and execute the DJI Pano function (with stitching), provided the DJI MSDK has this command available to do this. That is the first question. The second is can DL implement the DJI Pano from their MSDK?
The DJI SDK does have it, but working on this isn’t currently a priority.
Would a "Pretty Please" help?
Unfortunately, they are only interested in implementing this feature if you pay for it (I was told).
Understandably, "Paid for" enhancements take priority, but sometimes requested enhancements get done too. I had such an experience 2 years ago with one of mine. What would help is Up-Voting for the enhancement. If there is enough support sometime they will put it on their roadmap. So I am going to Up-vote your request.
Please sign in to leave a comment.