How to turn on camera capture before orbit
I have designed an orbit / spiral with an approach. I would like to have the drone automatically start capturing video at the beginning of the orbit and automatically stop capturing video at the completion of the orbit. I know that you can add a marker to a path and assign camera actions. However, I can't see to be able to assign a marker to either the orbit or the approach. What am I missing?
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Wes,
I went ahead and created two simple components that do what I said above for Take Photo and Start Video. You can find them in the Dronelink repo or the links below.
1) Sets up the camera (stop capture, sets video mode) on way to location (uses immediate setting)
Orbit Video (Simple) https://app.dronelink.com/dronelink/core/component/xMGjc1Sv5twHwssgkeeZ/Df4jhv3d4UjloNMVNjzH
You can put a Camera Start Capture command as the Achieved Component on the Orbit's Approach. You can then put a Camera Stop Capture command after the Orbit.
Thanks. I had tried that but then got two warnings. I understand the warnings but don't know how to add additional actions.
Issue 1
Camera start capture attempted before setting camera mode.
Recommendation: Add a camera mode command before this command.Issue 2
Camera start capture attempted before camera stop capture.
Recommendation: Add a camera stop capture command before this command in case the camera is already capturing before the Mission starts.
Try using a List for the Achieved component, and then add all the commands to the list.
Thank you. That appears to work. The path setup no longer gives me any warnings but I haven't flown the path yet.
It would be much simpler for the user if all one had to do was to specify one component / action: Start Capture. Where "Start Capture" would automatically put the camera into "Video Mode". Having to add both a "Stop Capture" and "Video Mode" prior to specifying "Start Capture" feels a bit redundant.
What if you want to put the camera in to photo mode and start capture to get a still image? Also, if you want that combination of commands, you can save off a list component that does just that, and then always just include it from your repository.
I would simply like to take a photo or start video capture. Choosing one of those should take the necessary steps to accomplish the task. Maybe I'm not understanding your point about "photo mode and start capture". If I want to take a photo, specifying the "take photo" action should be all that is required. If I want to start capturing video, the "capture video" action should do what is necessary to start capturing. I understand what you are saying about creating and saving a list of components that performs all of these steps. It feels too complicated a task to perform what should be a simple step. What am I missing?
There is no take photo command, only start capture. Consider what you would need to do in DJI GO if you opened the app to discover your drone was already recording video and you wanted to take a still photo. You would first need to tap the start/stop capture button. Then toggle the camera mode to video. Then tap the start/stop capture button again. This is exactly the situation the Dronelink issue detector must assume your mission plan is in, because it assumes the worst case scenario. Your options are to ignore the warning and hope for the best, or explicitly program the behavior to match what you would have to do manually if you found yourself in this situation in DJI GO. Anything else requires us to make assumptions that may not aways be true (with respect to your actual desires as an operator). We are trying to find a good compromise between complete control / programmability and making bad assumptions.
Thanks. I understand what you are saying. I've never experienced the situation where I opened the app and discovered that the drone was already recording video. I'm a Litchi user and sometimes set actions at waypoints such as "take photo" or "begin capture", etc. The DroneLink method to do that seems overly complex but I understand you are trying to handle any possible situation and are creating a toolset that handles all actions at a much lower level than that of Litchi.
Wes,
Realize first of all that the warnings can be ignored - it's a safety check for you. If you turn on your drone, have it in video mode, and Dronelink executes "start capture", it will start video (just as if you had flown manually and hit the start capture button).
If you're in Litchi and you're in "video mode" (not even already recording video) and you send a "take photo" command, will it automatically switch to camera mode and then take a picture (and visa versa)? If it does, it must be executing a safety command to switch to photo camera mode. It also doesn't prepare for the possibility of starting a mission with video being taken.
You could create your own component called "Take Photo" and create a list where it "stops capture, switches to photo mode, and then sends a start capture command". That's may be what Litchi is doing within their command to start photos or start video.. If so, it's sending unnecessary future commands. Dronelink is designed to optimize the commands that are truly required to do what you want it to do.
A better solution is to create your own "Path with Video" component which sets up the camera as you want, sends the stop capture, the correct camera mode, and possibly even sets a marker that you can move to define when you want to start /stop capturing video/images / etc.. Again, the beauty is that the flexibility lies with you to be as simple or as complex as you want it to be.
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