Waypoints and 360 panorama pictures
Hello everyone. I am new this forum and have been reading as much as I can to answer my own questions. However I can't seem to find the answer I am looking for. Maybe sone one here can clarify if what I am looking to do can be done.
Details:
I have a DJI Mavic Air 2
I purchased the Elite level membership
I was hoping to be able to set multiple waypoints about 10 feet apart and at the same altitude. At every waypoint, I would like the camera to take a 360 sphere panorama. It it does it automatically, even better but I would be fine with having to press the camera button to take 360 panoramas at every waypoint. That's essentially it.
I appreciate any bit of advice or a link to another thread if this has been covered before. Thank you!
Comments
15 comments
Easy to do.
Instead of typing it all out - I made a quick video to show how to do that.
https://screencast-o-matic.com/u/i5Hf/DL_multiple_360s
Note that I am assuming you don't need hundreds of these 360 photos. It seems overkill to take 360s every 10 feet - but I'm certainly not going to tell people
Hope that helps!
Barry, I was not expecting such a great response! Thank you so much for taking the time to not only respond but with a screen recording as well. It was exactly what I needed to get acquainted with using the New Plan features. I followed your steps and plotted 37 locations where the drone will take a 360 photo. I included a screenshot below.
I am planning on taking these 360 photos and importing them into a 3D rendering engine in order to make a digital version of this soccer field. Plotting the 37 points was not too bad but I totally agree with what you said about having 100 or more and it being a lot of work. Out of curiosity, are there other methods available if I did need to plot 100 or more locations? Not urgent at all but if there is a tutorial or a link you know of, please send it my way.
If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know! I mainly scan real estate properties and businesses to create virtual experiences for users. I am using my drone more in order to complement the virtual tours but also looking into mapping communities, vacant land, etc. I'm located in South Florida, so if there is anything I can help you with, just give me a shout.
Thanks again Barry!
Before I drive over to the location where I will fly the drone, I just wanted to show you the flight preview. I think it's all good but the preview doesn't seem to show the drone stop and do the 360 photos. However, I do see the camera commands in the preview details at the bottom of the screen.
Could you take a quick look and see if the preview looks good to you? Sorry for the follow-up question, I want to go fly this mission now since the sunlight is still favorable.
https://somup.com/crlUF5ZVq0
Thank you Barry
Hi.
Happy to help.
In this case, it looks as though you have copied the destination components instead of the 360 component. You need to be at the top level and when you copy it should look like this
It looks as though you clicked into the 360 component (to change the altitude?) and then didn't go back up to the top level.
If you do it correctly the camera actions in the simulation will look like this
Hopefully, that makes sense.
If you are still stuck - share the mission and I'll see if I can help
On a related note - I wonder if this is the right tool for the job. One of the things here is that there is so much in DL, that there is always more than one way to skin a cat.
Are you in the DL facebook group? Someone there posted their solution that might be what you are looking for and they did it using a cross hatch mission.
That thread is here: https://www.facebook.com/502648648/videos/313001973626007/
The results they obtained from that can be found here: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/fergus-falls-regional-treatment-center-cottage-d790f2d3d93d4ad09c8c40f5331e5813
I wonder if that is what you were looking for.
Here is a model I did using a simple path with the camera locked on to a POI. I shot video as I wasn't intending to do a 3d model, so later I extracted stills from the video and processed them into this model. I was very surprised at how well it turned out. https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/st-james-church-poplar-park-mb-1f8fdd98afba4a5a82cf47a6006323bc
Nice. I don’t do 3D mapping but it is Amazing what they look like once completed.
Barry: Your video on setting up the 360 photos plan is so simple and quick. I Appreciate the time you take to assist others with your videos. I’ve been using DL for one year now and I’m still trying new things even if I would rarely use them. Sometimes even though I may not use some functions & features I can usually find something which I can possibly use in a plan which I have never tried.
Mike (Arizona Wyldwest) Thank you - that is much appreciated.
Likewise, you also put out great content and thoughtful responses. If I see a response from Arizona, I usually know I won't be able to add much :)
I like to help where I can. Recently, I've had limited time to do much of that as I've been non-stop with work. But, today, I had a little free time for the first time in a while.
Barry Houldsworth thanks again for your feedback. I had not joined the DL Facebook group but after reading your message I requested to join. There were 3 groups so I requested all three of them.
The 360 panos are definitely not the best tool for mapping but in this case, I need to use this method due to the 3D platform I am using. The link you sent me was very helpful and it introduced me to Sketch Fab. I'll most definitely learn more about the Sketch Fab platform and how I can incorporate it into my 3D work.
Ken Kroeker I was blown away that you got such a clean-looking model from using stills from a video, wow! Could you share your workflow on how you accomplished that? Really awesome work.
Sebastian Fuentes No problem. Hopefully, my explanation worked for you and you were able to duplicate the 360s at each location.
The one I was referring to was the official one. If you need more help feel free to ping me on FB via DM for a faster response. https://www.facebook.com/aviosmedia
I would certainly be interested in the results you get.
Ken Kroeker Likewise, I was also very impressed with the results there. If you can share I might turn something like that into a "Five minute Friday"
Sure - Let me get stuff together and I'll post it up on my Google drive later today. The model I posted on Sketchfab was reduced to fit within Sketchfab's limits and is actually better than that.
It's -30 degrees C here today and while my mini might be willing to fly - I'm not. It was at a time like this I decided to have a play with something I had done in warmer weather.
Stay tuned.
First of all, let me say that I never intended to create a 3d model from this mission. If a 3d model is what you want, you can certainly do it with Dronelink using other mission types.
If anyone wants my data, I will put it up where you can get it, but I suspect you would rather use your own.
Here is the workflow I used:
The video was shot with a mavic mini flying a Dronelink mission similar to this one: https://app.dronelink.com/ken-j-kroeker/kjk-public-repository/plan/KXndkXMnur8IoxHDOw9J/P1SrefkLpEO9kuk1gF1K
JPG images were extracted from the video using this freeware: https://www.dvdvideosoft.com/products/dvd/Free-Video-to-JPG-Converter.htm
The software enables you to extract images using several criteria. I extracted 2 image sets, one of 45 images and the other of 234 images. Photogrammetry software as I'm sure you know is very CPU intensive and a small dataset for testing is a good idea.
The images were input to several photogrammetry applications I was looking at: Metashape, 3df zephyr. and Meshroom (Meshroom CL in my case). Trial versions of the first two, which are commercial packages are available here: https://www.agisoft.com/downloads/request-trial/ and here: https://www.3dflow.net/3df-zephyr-evaluation-download-page/
Meshroom and Meshroom CL are available on Github. If like me you use a system lacking CUDA cores, you will need Meshroom CL which is pre-release.
After a model is generated, regardless of the software you use, some cleanup will be required. The amount of cleanup varies widely from package to package. I used Meshroom to do basic cropping of the model and to patch a couple of holes.
What can be accomplished never seizes to amaze me. A plunder of resources available and almost always something I can find which I may be able to use in the future. Thanks everyone.
Mike…….
Ken Kroeker Thank you so much for taking the time to write that up. I'm a little tied up at the moment but I am adding that to the list of things to investigate for sure - it's been a while since I did any of these so it will be very interesting to see how things have progressed.
Thanks!
An additional note: 3df Zephyr has a free version of the software here: https://www.3dflow.net/3df-zephyr-free/
It is limited to 50 images. Their product will also read video files directly.
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