Fascination with Ground-station (waypoints) ???

[pterrill]

Hi Everyone, let me start off by saying that my new I1 is arriving next week, I have no tracking info yet. Also I've been monitoring this Forum for the last 3 weeks looking for a reason not to buy an I1. Let me explain I've had 3 Phantoms of various evolutions with all the goods and bad. So finally when I had an unrecoverable flyaway with a P3P after a recent FW update, I decided to investigate other platforms before before jumping in with both feet. Well after all I read good and bad the I1 seems to be where I want to be. That being said, can someone enlighten me the benefit of programming waypoints. The Phantoms have had this ability for quite awhile, and yes I've setup waypoint flights quit a few times, basically just to prove I could do it and to improve my piloting skills. But honestly after successfully completing these flights I just don't see what all the fuss is about. I read in this forum a member stating" no waypoints is a deal breaker" and the comments about how they couldn't wait for this ability. Now I might be missing something but what is practical reason. Now POI and follow me maybe. Now if waypoint programming included flying to a location, landing and then taking off agin autonomously completing the route, it might have some applications. But to the best of my knowledge that is not within the capabilities. If someone could explain a practical use that I'm not seeing please let me know.

Thank you! This forum has been a very good information source for me.

 

[James Munro]

Hi, congratulations on the new bird. Ground station for the Inspire was promised when it was announced and I think it's best use case will make the second remote controller a bit more redundant.
Imagine setting a flight path around your target then since the flying from point A to B to C is taken care of and with smooth computer controlled movements the sole operator can now have complete control of the camera. With the Inspire having a 360 gimbal this will give an unparalleled experience compared to the Phantom line.
It's quite an art form to control the craft and have smooth movement and also control the camera pan and tilt as well (there's some DIY solutions) which is why there is the 2 operator solution from DJI. Ground station would open up much more opportunities for pilots.
I'm hoping DJI release this and a few other features before the 3DR Solo gets its gimbal out since the automated features are literally all the 3DR crowd has over us at the moment.

 

[Drone Mastery]

Hi, congratulations on the new bird. Ground station for the Inspire was promised when it was announced and I think it's best use case will make the second remote controller a bit more redundant.
Imagine setting a flight path around your target then since the flying from point A to B to C is taken care of and with smooth computer controlled movements the sole operator can now have complete control of the camera. With the Inspire having a 360 gimbal this will give an unparalleled experience compared to the Phantom line.
It's quite an art form to control the craft and have smooth movement and also control the camera pan and tilt as well (there's some DIY solutions) which is why there is the 2 operator solution from DJI. Ground station would open up much more opportunities for pilots.
I'm hoping DJI release this and a few other features before the 3DR Solo gets its gimbal out since the automated features are literally all the 3DR crowd has over us at the moment.

 

[IrishSights]

It's a really bg deal for many as we do orthomossaics for mapping purposes and building 3D image models where hundreds of photographs are taken with a precise overlap and stitched together to make a very detailed orthomossaics or point cloud model. For this we need the semi autonomous flight function.

This is used in many sectors including Agriculture, construction, conservation, archaeology etc where a precisely, repeatable, accurate flight path is needed. For it not to be available yet in a prosumer craft like the Inspire is very disappointing. At present I actually get better mapping results from a P2 with a rectilinear lens in a GoPro and the clunky but functional DJI Ground Station.

Two big advantages of the Inspire is it's indurance and power to fly safely in much stronger winds.

 

[SultanGris]

It's a really bg deal for many as we do orthomossaics for mapping purposes and building 3D image models where hundreds of photographs are taken with a precise overlap and stitched together to make a very detailed orthomossaics or point cloud model. For this we need the semi autonomous flight function.

This is used in many sectors including Agriculture, construction, conservation, archaeology etc where a precisely, repeatable, accurate flight path is needed. For it not to be available yet in a prosumer craft like the Inspire is very disappointing. At present I actually get better mapping results from a P2 with a rectilinear lens in a GoPro and the clunky but functional DJI Ground Station.

Two big advantages of the Inspire is it's indurance and power to fly safely in much stronger winds.

hrm, good point. never understood the desire for waypoint flight myself. I have a P2 and an inspire 1, however in my opinion they both handle the wind up to and beyond what the average person would want to fly it in anyway. Its often windy where i live and fly and im very impressed with the amount of wind they can both fly in, although if youre trying to take pictures/video in high winds it may be problematic as they fly at pretty good angles to hold position in fast winds. Though the inspire is much larger/heavier and handles it better in gps mode Ive flown my P2 in 20mph+ winds multiple times and it handles it great with the only issue being that the P2 GPS flight mode limits its speed to 30MPH which can be too slow when trying to fly into high winds but if you switch to ATTI mode it will easily go 48MPH and is much more effective although more flying skill is required to use ATTI mode. My best advice is fly against the wind first and then when the battery gets low youll be flying with the wind to return and wont have a problem vs if you fly with the wind first and try to come back against it and suddenly find out your max speed is only 10MPH, lol! Ive flown in very fast winds and never had any issues other than the slow speeds flying into the wind. Ive had my inspire 1 going 82.4MPH going with a strong wind in atti mode but it only went 15MPH against it. A little common sense and planning ahead enough to make sure you fly into the wind first so that when youre coming back to land so you have enough battery power left to reach the destination makes flying in the wind a non issue. If you fly with the wind at first and try to come back against it you will most likely not make it back to the landing zone unless you have lots of experience and know your birds capabilities very very well. Being able to fly ATTI mode helps greatly as it allows a much greater top speed vs gps mode for the phantoms, ive not noticed a significant increase with the inspire though there is a small increase in speeds.

 

[IrishSights]

hrm, good point. never understood the desire for waypoint flight myself. I have a P2 and an inspire 1, however in my opinion they both handle the wind up to and beyond what the average person would want to fly it in anyway. Its often windy where i live and fly and im very impressed with the amount of wind they can both fly in, although if youre trying to take pictures/video in high winds it may be problematic as they fly at pretty good angles to hold position in fast winds. Though the inspire is much larger/heavier and handles it better in gps mode Ive flown my P2 in 20mph+ winds multiple times and it handles it great with the only issue being that the P2 GPS flight mode limits its speed to 30MPH which can be too slow when trying to fly into high winds but if you switch to ATTI mode it will easily go 48MPH and is much more effective although more flying skill is required to use ATTI mode. My best advice is fly against the wind first and then when the battery gets low youll be flying with the wind to return and wont have a problem vs if you fly with the wind first and try to come back against it and suddenly find out your max speed is only 10MPH, lol! Ive flown in very fast winds and never had any issues other than the slow speeds flying into the wind. Ive had my inspire 1 going 82.4MPH going with a strong wind in atti mode but it only went 15MPH against it. A little common sense and planning ahead enough to make sure you fly into the wind first so that when youre coming back to land so you have enough battery power left to reach the destination makes flying in the wind a non issue. If you fly with the wind at first and try to come back against it you will most likely not make it back to the landing zone unless you have lots of experience and know your birds capabilities very very well. Being able to fly ATTI mode helps greatly as it allows a much greater top speed vs gps mode for the phantoms, ive not noticed a significant increase with the inspire though there is a small increase in speeds.

Ground Station/waypoints is not about speed, in fact the opposite is true. In my case 10m/s is fast. The Inspire power increases the amount of safe flying days here in Ireland by around 60%. I would never fly a Phantom in 20mph winds even though you can. My flying is about accurate data aquisition using waypoints not about how far the flight capability envelope can be pushed. But each to his own I know and we are discussing the 'fascination' with waypoints not the need for speed which is not really related to the capability of flying safely in stronger winds - its about power.

ADDED: ATTI is no use in waypoint missions by its very nature.

 

[SultanGris]

Ground Station/waypoints is not about speed, in fact the opposite is true. In my case 10m/s is fast. The Inspire power increases the amount of safe flying days here in Ireland by around 60%. I would never fly a Phantom in 20mph winds even though you can. My flying is about accurate data aquisition using waypoints not about how far the flight capability envelope can be pushed. But each to his own I know and we are discussing the 'fascination' with waypoints not the need for speed which is not really related to the capability of flying safely in stronger winds - its about power.

ADDED: ATTI is no use in waypoint missions by its very nature.

oh i understand, i was just explaining the way I like to fly. Just a hobby and a need for speed so far. I totally get the use of waypoints for data acquisition as you describe, ive just never used my drones that way, yet. Im trying to get into a beta for using the inspire for 3d mapping so with any luck i will be learning much more about it very soon if all goes according to plan. Id also like to learn more about creating high quality HD still images by taking multiple pics and stitching them together(forget the technical term) to create a very high quality still image as i find a single still pic taken with the inspire camera extremely lacking. My samsung galaxy note 4 takes better stills in my opinion, lol! i was hoping to use the inspire to photograph peoples farmsteads from the air and sell them a large framed high quality picture for a few hundred bucks but I dont think a single still picture is gonna be near high quality enough for my needs.

 

[damoncooper]

Waypoints can make repeated video flights possible where you can for example fly the same mission in various seasons and bring that video together to have the seasons smoothly change during your flyover. This was a request by a BBC producer who contacted me to capture New England fall foliage flyover video.