Repo 360 component and gimbal drift
I have a series of 360 pano components from the Dronelink repo, and the gimbal continuously rotates to the left to point at the left propeller making images unusable. This is a new Mavic 2 Pro from DJI Care Refresh and seems to be fine otherwise. I have calibrated the gimbal. Using the DJI Go 4 app sphere/panorama, I do not have this problem. I am on the latest version of Dronelink on a Pixel 3A.
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The DJI SDK has a bug that causes the gimbal to drift during virtual stick missions. We created a kluge / work-around for this issue years ago, but the latest version of the DJI SDK invalidated that work-around because they removed / broke the API that it relied on (ugh). Suspiciously, their newer drones don't seem to suffer from the same issue...
That's a drag. So your workaround no longer works? No fix?
I couldn't find any other way to fix it :(
Essentially the DJI SDK lies about the true heading of the gimbal relative to the drone heading.
In my case, the gimbal rotates almost 90º, not slightly, as appears what your workaround above addressed. I had a search at Litchi and found this thread, apparently the same problem and a fix. So this bug is with virtual stick implementations only? https://forum.flylitchi.com/t/360-panoramas-panning-camera-full-left-m2pro/2263/15
It didn't happen with onboard waypoints during our testing, so yes, virtual stick only. It isn't clear from that thread if they were talking about virtual stick or onboard, but if it was virtual stick, if you can get them to share more details about their fix...
Do you know if I downgrade the Mavic 2 Pro firmware to the previous version, 01.00.0640, will this gimbal behavior be corrected? Can you email me any technical details/bug reports you've made to DJI that validate this bug so that i can take this up with DJI Care Refresh? I'm still covered until December. Maybe they will swap it out for an Air 2S. Can you confirm the Air 2S works with your 360 component correctly? This is such a drag. I only use this drone for 360s and DJI bricks it.
IIRC it was the DJI SDK, not the firmware. We can’t roll that back because the previous version does not support the Mini 2 or the Air2S.
Jim, I have been going back and forth with DJI about this issue and received the following email last night. Once they revert the mobile sdk, will this functionality work correctly again?
William Wong (DJI)
Jun 7, 2022, 12:08 GMT+8
Dear Client
Thank you for contacting DJI.
From MSDK 4.16 to 4.16.1, we have changed the angle rotation not following the aircraft heading. We are going to revert this change and the next SDK version is about to release at the end of June. So for the new version of the SDK, you need to pay attention to the gimbal mode. The yaw-follow gimbal mode is what you want to use.
Kindly Regards,
DJI Developer Support
DJI emailed me again and suggested Dronelink could provide a "previous version" to get my project flying now, rather than wait for their SDK reversion. Is that possible?
William Wong (DJI)
Jun 8, 2022, 11:29 GMT+8
Thank you for contacting DJI.
Also you can contact to the Dronelink for their previous version, this will at least make sure your project is working for now.
Kindly Regards,
DJI Developer Support
The latest beta build (205) has the new version of the DJI SDK (4.16.1) if you want to try. Seemed to work for me.
To follow up on this, I am running the beta and the latest web mission planner. The drifting gimble problem has been fixed! But, a straightforward mission of shooting 4-5 360º panos failed after shooting the first panorama. Mission is here: https://app.dronelink.com/karl-schroll/niwot-real-estate/plan/vitU2oOYRxAUlKSx39HV
Karl, you need to put that in a public repo
Was the drone in manual exposure mode? If the new pano component doesn’t work for you, you can always switch back to the old one.
Yes, I had the drone in manual mode to avoid exposure shifts between the photos once they are stitched. Should I not do that? I recall from your previous help a while back that with the M2P drone and the older mission planner and older 360 component that I had to set to "not required" the instruction in row 4 "camera metering mode" = average. I would always get errors at that point that ended the mission, but doing the above fixed it and the mission would run. I don't see a way of doing this in the new 360 component (nor do i know if that's even related) -- is there?. I'd love to use the new 360 component, but will revert unless I am missing something (thanks!). One other thing, the new 360 component is really slow to execute. There is a lengthy pause after each photo is taken before the drone takes the next. I didn't time it, but one 360º takes at least 2x as long as the DJI 360º process. Is there a way to speed that up, assuming that I can use the new 360º component? Thank you.
The new component is easy button and thus doesn't allow customization like you want. You need to use the old way (expert mode basically).
Will do, thanks. I've recreated the mission using the old 360º component and the mission preview shows it will run much faster, fyi. Will let you know if runs ok. Appreciate the help!
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