Waypoints - Take Picture at each waypoint?
I searched and found a lot of people have trouble with this simple requirement.
I need to iteratively add a waypoint (actually many waypoint) but it needs to take a picture, The picture should be the same as the last waypoint - Gimble pitch -90'.
Is there a solution to adding waypoint with this capability? I need to build a mission with over 300 waypoint and need to take a picture at each one, straight down. I can't practically modify each waypoint individually with a photo setting. It would be ridiculously time consuming.
Thanks.
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14 comments
Use a photo component, and then duplicate it so it has the -90 already?
Yup.... Just tried this. More more more clicks, and don't know how to insert a Photo between too other photos but am experimenting. Know of a way? good suggestion.
CNTRL-C // CNTRL-V would be an excellent way to copy and paste the Photos, but that doesn't work.
OK... 241 Photo components later I have 25 percent of tomorrow's mission planned !. Now I want to globally raise the 60' AGL to 70' AGL for all 241 Photos... How to do that?
Photos can be multi-selected and updating a couple of parameters is possible...
Click the search icon at the top right of the component list, search for the component type to edit (photos), then click select all.
Thanks Jim....Good process. I do get both PHOTO and PHOTO START components when I select All Photo. But it gets me closer since I can select PHOTO START and adjust altitude for both. one question. Does the drone come to a full stop at each Photo Component? And I noticed the gimbal pitch seems to go to 0 degrees between photo components, rather than stay at -90. Are these behaviors changeable?
Hi Daniel. I’ve taken a look at this thread a couple times and I believe I can help.
1- Yes, the photo component comes to a full stop to capture. The mission preview will indicate this at each capture. (See help article)
2- For the gimbal to be at -90° while flying to each next component you would need to go into the start on each photo component and set the gimbal there. This way it will keep the gimbal at that -90° pitch while on the approach. Unfortunately this means you cannot select all of them like with changing multiple waypoints parameters. So you would need to go into each one of those 300 components which means a lot more time. Since it won’t affect the capture it’s not necessary but it’s up to you.
3- My suggestion for future missions similar to this where you have a ton of these is to create a component and add just that photo component and save it in a Repo. Then you can go into it and change any of the settings particularly the ones at the start of the component like, altitude, speed, gimbal pitch and even achievement time which cannot be changed later without going into each one. This way when you duplicate it they will all be set the same and ready to go.
4- 300 photo components will take a good amount of flight time obviously and the achievement time on each by default is 4 seconds. It may not make a big difference in most plans but with 300 of them that means about 1200 seconds (20 minutes) of hovering total before moving to the next. If you change those to 1 second you would save roughly about 15 minutes in the air. It may not matter to you but depending on how many batteries you have it may help. I don’t know how you set it up and what the estimated mission time is but it’s just something to think about. Changing to 1 second achievement time with your situation should not affect the mission in any way except less flight time. Hope this helps and makes sense. Good luck.
Remember the DL articles which should help.
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/articles/6380731921043-Photo-Mission-Component
https://support.dronelink.com/hc/en-us/sections/6859087863955-Waypoints-Mission-Component
Thanks Mike. Very thoughtful response. I've been tinkering with making Photos a Repo Component, but the multi second pause time kills the efficiency for continuous motion. There is a Duplicate button that helps.
And it works by duplicating a Point of Interest that I set to -300,000 feet... Meaning the Gimble stays at -90 degrees. Clever huh!... Still more clicks than optimal.
Now the real efficient solution is to maintain the Camera Action setting when adding / inserting Waypoints. Almost all other settings copy over, but why not Camera Actions? If Jim and team could just make this work we Mega Way pointers would be very happy. I'm sure the community would appreciate this easy improvement.
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Nice hat. Good one. Lol…
Daniel, here's a photo component with the gimbal set at -90 https://app.dronelink.com/martin-reading/public-components/component/dY6uJtMvbMU4bBO6Vr7G/jEWiGkNikglW61tGu2HT
Hi Martin. Greetings from Florida. Thanks for the example. The problem I have occurs between Photos where the gimbal changes from -90 to 0 then back to -90 each time. For the plans I am creating hundreds of Photos. ( I'll needlessly wear out my gimbal if it has to oscillate up and down so much).
Daniel Snyder, that 's the thing with the way that component is set up, the gimbal is permanently set -90, check out this mission in preview https://app.dronelink.com/martin-reading/public-test/plan/8XSWFjxMIegm4NgDXa5J
Could you describe what you are trying to accomplish at a high level, and maybe I can make some suggestions about how to use the system better, and which component types to use. I feel like I don’t have the whole picture here.
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