DJI Pilot & Mission Planner (???)

[ddepker]

So I did it. I took the plunge and picked up a DJI Inspire 1 and man was I blown away by the manual flight control. The thing is quick, responsive, and stops/turns on a dime. I didn't even know a drone with this kind of manual control was possible. So learning to fly the thing manually has been amazing to say the least.

However, I put manual flight under my belt and am ready to take on some more advanced flight modes to create missions or way point routes. As impressed with the Inspire 1 as I was, I was equally unimpressed with the mission planner built in to the Pilot app. DJI seriously gave us this ridiculously capable drone, but decided to release it integrated with the DJI Pilot app that has the worst mission planner on the face of this earth. I had no doubt in my mind about the purchase up until this point and realizing all of the complex flight missions like surveying and 3D renders I will be unable to do or at a startlingly lower quality.

Please tell me I am missing something here and that there is another planner app out there... Please tell me there is a third part mission planner solution out there. Don't tell me i am stuck with DJI Pilot until some random guy decides to build a mission planning app out of good will.

MY MIND IS BLOWN TO THE EXTREME ON BOTH ENDS OF THE SPECTRUM BY DJI.

 

[m00se]

Yup, it sucks hey? As far as I know there isnt anything yet....

 

[ddepker]

I am speechless... this is unreal. There is no way possible they are ignorant to this fact. So, they are purposely ignoring this huge gaping hole in their product development/offering. I don't think I could ever buy another DJI with such blatant disregard.

DroidPlanner 3 (Tower) is such a solid mission planner, does DJI just not have a clue what their competition uses? I am going to guess my next drone will be another 3DR as they obviously have much better vision as to the most important pieces of a drone puzzle.

Wow... just wow.

 

[m00se]

in fairness to DJI (I would like a waypoint planner though) the I1 is a video platform. It hasnt been designed to make startling 3d renders and fly complex GIS mapping missions.
The camera is simply too low grade to be good at that. There are plenty of other drones that would get better results.
I have done some 3d renders etc with the inspire, it works, but not too well

 

[ddepker]

Yeah, but this is their multidrone platform for controlling the camera and other systems. The 3DR IRIS+ with its GoPro is far worse a platform for 3D, but the option is there, not be cause it is necessary, but because it is just a basic surveying flight mode where the flight pattern is automatically laid out when you designate the area. These are basic auto-pilot flight modes that require little complexity. They have absolutely no excuse for this garbage to be used with a $3k drone. The fact that it is a video platform is all the more reason to have an extremely capable auto-pilot mission planner. I get why you say that, but I misconstrued what I meant, not so much being able to do 3D renders; it is the simple auto-pilot system that is required to make it happen as well as many other basic auto-pilot flight plans.

 

[m00se]

I would like to see some options for a flyby focused on a POI and things like that, I would also use the GIS grid function if it was available.

For a basic 3d render, I guess it works ok, I am just looking at one I did a few weeks ago. Its a shame I also got a GPS loss that pushed me off course, because one of my lines is pretty badly misaligned as I couldnt get it back to the same spot again, judgin from how wonky the line is, I would say there was also some compass drift during it.

Maybe there is a reason they havent brought the functionality out yet, maybe they know it doesnt work.

 

[m00se]

 

[m00se]

there is an example of what I mean, they have also crippled the GPS logging function, in the EXIF file there is GPS position data, but they have dropped the last two digits, giving an error of approx 40m, making it useless.

 

[ddepker]

YES!!! I desperatley need POI capabilities for the services I provide. That is huge and although the IRIS+ had to keep facing at the POI since it only had a 2 axis gimbal at least I could set up missions to accomplish this.

 

[m00se]

for now it looks like you will need to learn to fly those things manually. And the worst thing? the drone is linked to your DJI account, and cannot be unlinked. So if you sell it the new person cant register it, I guess you would have to give the account with the drone

 

[m00se]

http://www.dronesmadeeasy.com/Articles.asp?ID=254

just found this on another thread, not ready yet, but in the works

 

[ddepker]

Well I appreciate the help, but I am running Android.

They best get their act together, lest they want to lose what was going to be a newly minted fanboy.

 

[m00se]

unfortunately I dont think they are going to lose much sleep over a handful of angry people. . . . .

 

[Simon Arvestrand]

Only ios

Sent from my S5

 

[IrishSights]

There are several 3rd party apps on the way. Pix4d Capture, Autopilot, Dronedeploy, Litchi, and rumours suggest the DJI offering is close. We will be spoilt for choice before too long. Actually when you think about it, it will give us choice compared to other platforms.

Mapping using an Inspire will be great once it comes, especially with a RX100 or A5000 hung underneath.

 

[MonroePoteet]

I don't know if it will help your 3D projects, but I use SynthEyes to integrate 3D elements into live footage. It is an incredibly capable "match mover" which can reverse engineer the camera motion from all sorts of footage, even from hand-held cameras on the run. As long as it can find "spots" in the imagery to assign Trackers and track though the shot, it can produce a camera path. The Automatic mode is pretty amazing, IMO, and there's a variety of manual assistance the user can provide to fine tune or correct issues (e.g. provide horizon or vertical lines, scale of the imagery, isolate moving objects, etc.).

Here's the website, which include lots of tutorials and a free trial:

https://www.ssontech.com/synovu.html

It might also be helpful in surveys, but I don't know for sure. I can imagine that even with a well-planned flight path, environmental issues like gusts of wind, GPS / compass drift, and height drift might distort the actual flight path making integration of the 3D elements tough, requiring a lot of manual fine-tuning. SynthEyes (or another match mover) might be a good addition to the toolset anyway.

mTp

 

[ddepker]

There are several 3rd party apps on the way. Pix4d Capture, Autopilot, Dronedeploy, Litchi, and rumours suggest the DJI offering is close. We will be spoilt for choice before too long. Actually when you think about it, it will give us choice compared to other platforms.

Mapping using an Inspire will be great once it comes, especially with a RX100 or A5000 hung underneath.

Do any of these work with Inspire 1?

 

[ddepker]

I don't know if it will help your 3D projects, but I use SynthEyes to integrate 3D elements into live footage. It is an incredibly capable "match mover" which can reverse engineer the camera motion from all sorts of footage, even from hand-held cameras on the run. As long as it can find "spots" in the imagery to assign Trackers and track though the shot, it can produce a camera path. The Automatic mode is pretty amazing, IMO, and there's a variety of manual assistance the user can provide to fine tune or correct issues (e.g. provide horizon or vertical lines, scale of the imagery, isolate moving objects, etc.).

Here's the website, which include lots of tutorials and a free trial:

https://www.ssontech.com/synovu.html

It might also be helpful in surveys, but I don't know for sure. I can imagine that even with a well-planned flight path, environmental issues like gusts of wind, GPS / compass drift, and height drift might distort the actual flight path making integration of the 3D elements tough, requiring a lot of manual fine-tuning. SynthEyes (or another match mover) might be a good addition to the toolset anyway.

mTp

Awesome piece of software, thanks. A bit pricey but may be able to justify purchasing as i grow my biz.

 

[IrishSights]

Do any of these work with Inspire 1?

All state they will have Inspire versions soon.

 

[ddepker]

All state they will have Inspire versions soon.

Do you or does anyone know if the "DJI Lightbridge" app is supposed to work with the Inspire 1? "DJI Pilot" connects no problem, but I can't seem to get the "DJI Lightbridge" app to connect to my drone.