Mavic 3E mission with zoom

Michael Porritt

Hi All,

I tried a mapping mission where we initially flew grids over an asset to make a 3D model, then due to surrounding trees I wanted to fly up to 40m and zoom in to do an orbit around the asset (I know its not best practice but I had limited options).

I set up the camera commands after the grid mapping miision with the camera zoom ratio to 2, however when the mission got to that part it stopped and came up with an error.

My question is, how do we control the zoom in missions with the commands? Was I just doing it incorrectly (I wanted 2x zoom so had the zoom ratio set to 2).

I also would like to do this with video, fly higher than surrounding trees, but zoom in to get the detail required.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Cheers,

Michael

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Comments

16 comments

  • Comment author
    Michael Porritt
    • Edited

    Thanks for the feedback guys, appreciate it.

    Ive played around with the M3E and have found that as Mike said, the zoom ratio does not work regardless of what I do. The zoom percent also fails unless you open the DJI app first and select the Zoom camera over the wide camera, then close the DJI app. Once this happens then the zoom % function works well. With mapping however we need to use the wide lens with mechanical shutter so unless the dronelink team put in a command to allow changing from the wide lens to the zoom lens in the command function, it makes it a little to hard to automate this sort of thing.

    Great tip though to do bench testing of commands Mike, worked a treat, although I also left the props off the M3E just in case...

    Cheers,

     

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  • Comment author
    Jim McAndrew Dronelink Staff

    Is this the command you need?

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  • Comment author
    Mike (Arizona Wyldwest) Dronelink Expert Dronelink Expert

    Hi Michael. I zoom manually since it’s too hard to know what the percentage would need to be based on distance, altitude or other factors on every flight. Also the mission preview can’t display the zoom percentage so it would be a guess. The Video should be no problem but I don’t know if the Mavic 3E has photo zoom capability. If it does then make sure you have the correct camera selected either manually or with a component list to set it.

    I just spent some time testing about a dozen ways to see what would work with my MA2. (See below on how you can test commands without needing to fly the drone.) There are two ways which I know work and you can try with your drone. First If you haven’t already, enable the zoom function in the DL app settings. This way you can just pause the mission at any location and set the zoom then click resume mission. The second way is by utilizing the “Zoom Percent.” My MA2 can zoom up to 4x which means if I set to 100% then it zooms to that max 4x. So 50% would be half of that. I placed the command near the top of my component list just after the Camera Mode which is set to Video. I could not get the “Zoom Ratio” to work no matter where place it in the plan or set to 2, 3 or 4x so I’d stick with Zoom Percent and try it. Maybe DL can look into the Ratio issue but it doesn’t matter to me as long as it works with percent.

    You can test any camera component by creating a blank new plan with no motion components meaning No Path, Orbit, Map, Checkpoint etc. The only thing you should have is the purple reference pin. Then add any camera command you wish to test and see if they work. Then connect the drone and controller and open DL app as usual. Load that empty plan and click start. Since the plan has no motion components it will not start the motors and fly. If there is an issue with a particular command it will indicate what it is. You can remove the props just to be safe if you’re concerned about the motors spinning up but they won’t as long as it only has the purple reference pin. Hope that helps.

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  • Comment author
    Nicolas Roberts Dronelink Staff

    To add on to Mike's suggestions and to add some context, the DJI SDK provides certain ratios that provide convenience over percentage values. For example, some of the ratio values provided I remember off the top of my head on my Mavic 3T where 1x, 4x, 8x, 16x. However, if the value specified in the ratio command in the Dronelink web app is something else that is not part of those provided values (in this case your value was 2x), the command will not work. If you'd rather use the ratio command over the percentage zoom command or the slider zoom controls in the native app, you need to go into the DJI pilot app and check which preset ratios are supported for your drone.

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  • Comment author
    Mike (Arizona Wyldwest) Dronelink Expert Dronelink Expert

    Yeah, unless the DL app has a camera selection or a command to change the Mavic 3 camera then that will be needed to be done in the DJI app. There has always been a few functions which cannot be accomplished with the DL app and must be done either by the pilot manually or if even possible with a command. The testing of commands is something most don’t know about. It’s a secret so don’t tell anyone. Lol…..

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    I was just coming here to look for this Mike (Arizona Wyldwest)!  I don't see a way to change camera from wide to zoom from the dronelink interface.  I could have sworn I had the ability to do that before, but next up, I am going to test some commands to do it.

    That is how much I hate the DJI Pilot app.  : )

     

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  • Comment author
    John Gibson

    Has the ability to change between wide and zoom modes been added to the feature requests?  I looked, but did not see it.

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    John, it is in the actual product. No need for a feature request.

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  • Comment author
    John Gibson

    Thanks for the reply Tony Simek.  I do most of my missions in wide mode and I'd like to have it automatically switch to the zoom mode.  I'm not seeing how to make that change in my components list.  

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    oh, in mission got it. i was wrong, and yes that should be a request!

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    John Gibson - If you don't mind shooting with the zoom lens exclusively, you can select that lens before starting a mission, and then using the zoom percentage command, you can zoom in and out during the dronelink mission.  The only downside I can see is you are not using the main camera for the non-zoomed shots.

     

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  • Comment author
    John Gibson

    Tony Simek That's what I'm looking at doing.  I do most of my missions in wide and was worried I would run a mission in zoom and not have the quality I was expecting.  After some testing yesterday, I figured out that after you turn the drone off and back on, it automatically switches back to wide.  

     

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    Makes sense John Gibson.  Probably the first thing is DJI would have to have a switch lens command in the SDK, before Dronelink could even take advantage of it in a mission plan.  It would be kind of cool to have that, so I hope it happens for your use case.

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    Oh my goodness! I am embarrassed I missed that!!! Yes! I will try that today!!!

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  • Comment author
    Tony Simek

    John, Jim was spot on and this works just great for switching lenses.

    Here is a ground based test to see it in action.

    https://app.dronelink.com/southwestern-aerial-studios/shared-plans/share/pztClcKlySvLc0uFqk2L

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  • Comment author
    John Gibson

    Thank you both!  That worked perfectly!  

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