Blurry Mapping
I was pretty excited to test dronelink mapping with my DJI Mavic Air 2 today. Unfortunately, I was disappointed after seeing the pictures of my 20 minute mission. They were extremely blurred and you could barely make out anything reasonable. The drone flew at about 10km/h at an altitude of 35m.
It was not due to the light conditions, despite the fact that I flew an hour before sunset in the fall - there was enough.
When I read the community posts I felt pretty annoyed. They solved the problem by allowing you to convert the mapping mission to an inspection mission. Why then does Dronelink offer Mapping already in the "Elite" subscription? The images are not usable like that.
Which settings have to be taken into care? I will give dronlink another try, hopefully with support information. If this does not bring improvements I will want to ask for a refund.
Comments
21 comments
I have the MA2 and have mapping with my plan. I don’t use mapping much but my photos were always good. Many have used this a lot without issues. Maybe share your plan. 😃
Mike (Arizona Wyldwest) hmmm. this was my mission today https://app.dronelink.com/nschuetrumpf/community/plan/GJcPV3sFDg4HMVsfrXyf
Typically this issue is caused by rolling shutter, which is a camera hardware limitation that can generally only be solved by slowing down the drone, sometimes to a complete stop. Since the inspection component already effectively did this, we create a temporary solution to this issue by allowing users to convert their mapping missions into inspection missions. The next version of Dronelink (v3.1.0, still in beta) has several new options directly in the map component which allow distance based camera triggering and slowing the drone down during capture, potentially all the way to 0mph.
Hey Jim McAndrew thanks for your reply.
I would really like to give Dronelink another try. Today at noon (CET) I will start again with a few changes in the mission.
Is there any way to test the beta? Is it enough to join the beta in Google Play? I would be interested in the feature to test it.
We don't have it available in the public beta yet, and when we do release these features, it will probably be only in the Growth plan. For now, I recommend you either fly higher, slower, or both, or get a drone with a mechanical shutter.
Alright i opened a new Ticket (#3660) for my account cancellation and a refund.
It's just like taking photos, you have to consider the amount of light, ISO, aperture, shutter speed and you'll be fine. The higher you fly, the higher the speed you can take pictures under the same conditions. The lower it is, the slower the speed or the faster the shutter speed. The best option is to stop at each photo. This can be done with e.g. DJI Ground Station Pro, which is available for free.
You're right vg1 , but nevertheless I didn't imagine dronelink to be like this. I expected to get a mapping feature where I can make more detailed settings. Instead, support only says that it only works in the Enterprise plan. This is the main reason why I want to cancel my account. dronelink just doesn't meet my expectations.
This is not true. The map component in your plan already allows you to choose a slower speed and a higher altitude, which was the recommendation. If you want to go further and set your own ISO, aperture, shutter speed, etc, your plan also allows you to do any of these things in an automated way through command components, or manually through the menus in the flight dashboard.
The options that I mentioned previously which require the Growth plan are for advanced cases where people want / need to slow the drone down to a complete stop, which is probably not necessary if you fly slow enough, high enough, or choose the right camera settings.
Niklas, there are many mapping programs, some free. Give Dronlinek a chance, test. I do it like that.
Niklas. I agree with above comments about slowing the speed and changing to better altitude. The rest is in camera adjustments which I’ve had great results with even though I don’t do many maps. Hope it works out for you because Dronelink can do so much more then just mapping. Good luck and Enjoy..
I don’t believe most of the DJI automated apps work with newer drones like the MA2. I tried several of them about a year ago and it wasn’t supported. Seems like they are old apps and very little has been done to upgrade them. That’s one of many reason why I choose Dronelink.
Jim McAndrew
Overall I think Dronelink is great and everything that has been done from an open road map on Trello, quick adoption of DJI SDK's and much are great.
I am a new user and was somewhat disappointed that the maps are blurry. I have slowed down the drone and increased the height to achieve better results.
A suggestion would be to update the Pricing Comparison page (https://app.dronelink.com/pricing/hobbyist/compare) as it gives an explanation of Mapping but not Inspection. I found out through searching support to that Inspection is what I needed but it was more expensive then I'm willing to pay as a hobbyist.
Overall, Dronelink on the elite plan is great for lower quality maps but the best results are to painfully do missions manually or upgrade to the growth plan.
I use mapping a lot...at least once a week, sometimes more. For these, I typically use a Phantom 4 Pro, which has a mechanical shutter that seems to mostly do away with the rolling shutter issue. I also use a Mavic 2 Pro when the P4P is not available.
With both of these drones, I'm able to achieve great results almost every time. I have also used the same drones with other software when clients request it specifically. Ironically, the last time someone complained about blurry images was when the client asked me to use DroneDeploy, because they were trying it out.
So, perhaps, the issue isn't with the software, but with the hardware?
The Air 2 is supposed to have decent write speeds and has (I believe) a fixed aperture of f/2.8 so, in theory, the camera should be OK. Are there other factors that could be affecting the speed at which the images are being captured? For example:
I'm not saying that is the case - just offering things to consider. Maybe borrow a P4P from someone and run the same mission to see what you get with that?
Barry Houldsworth
Hi Barry, thanks for the suggestions/response.
I have used both the Phantom 4 Pro V2 and am beta testing the mini SE. The Phantom 4 Pro is far better for the reasons you mentioned plus just better everything camera wise.
Not using any ND filters and the SD card is SanDisk Extreme class 10 (have to double check the actual model but use the same standard for all drones).
While I wouldn't expect the mini se to compare to the P4P, there is a very noticeable quality in the map when flying an automated dronlink mission vs manually stopping for each photo (e.g. an inspection mission).
I think people should be realistic about what they can get out of mini se but with the release of the SDK earlier this year I suspect many people will find mapping blurry with these cheaper drones and may raise the same issue.
The additional feature that I think could solve this issue is being able to set the max capture speed to 0 which would allow drones with no mechanical shutters to achieve better results.
Technically you can set the max flight speed to 1kmph but it's not practical.
Ross King
All valid points. I think drones like the Mini SE and similar are great for what they are and can achieve some surprisingly good results. As a result, people start to expect them to be able to handle anything.
But, per your comment, I think people need to be realistic about what they are trying to do with the hardware they have and so bringing this into the forums as a discussion point is a great way to do that.
I run jobs on large construction sites. One I am working with right now is 400 acres and the ortho, running at 20mph, pulls in an average of about 950 photos and the P4P handles it no problem. If I were to stop at every photo, I would be there for days!
Can software solve some of the issues? Sure. But, personally, I see Dronelink as a professional tool compared with many others out there and if people are looking to do this professionally then, perhaps, they should invest in the right tools.
Barry Houldsworth
Agreed
We recently introduced a new Capture Speed feature for maps:
If you set it to something very small the drone will almost come to a complete stop during each exposure. If you want a full stop, you still have to use Inspection.
Hi Ross. Only suggestion I have is in the future you may want to to get a V30 speed rated SD card which has much faster read and write speeds. The class 10 is ok and may work in most situations with photos but not always especially when shooting high bitrate and resolution videos. Spend just a bit more and get Sandisk extreme or extreme pro V30 card. The MA2 has a video bitrate of 120 mbps is quite fast and shooting in 4K may cause some issues. Better to use a much faster card so you will never need to worry about them. If you do encounter issues in the future and all other options have been exhausted then you may need to upgrade the card. Even DJI website sells and recommends V30’s. Just some thoughts. Enjoy.
Looks like capture speed is for growth & enterprise too.
Jim McAndrew
Thanks for the info.
That definitely solves the issue. Not expected a Yes to this question but is there any plans in the future to possibly adding this into the Elite Plan?
I'm only a hobbyist and really happy with Drone Link without it but it's the only feature I would of really liked as the I can't justify the Growth Plan without a business need for it.
No problems if it isn't. I get it that it's a business and you get what you pay for.
Thanks.
Anything is possible, but this is one of the key features that businesses need to upgrade for, so unlikely.
Please sign in to leave a comment.