Aerial 360 panoramic photos

Recent aerial 360 panoramic photo captured using RC octocopter with Cinestar 2 axis and 2 radians (loving those radians!). http://www.360cities.net/image/aerial-360-of-sparkling-waters-hotel-and-spa-south-africa

 

Hi Caju. I have been specializing in creating ground based 360 Virual Tours for 5 years now, so have quite a bit of gear that could work. Currently using the 7D with Sigma 8mm f3.5 (although I'm not a big Sigma fan, this is the best lens out there for shooting 360s).

Recently Canon released the 8-15mm L, which I now have for ground based 360s. It is slightly better in the corners, and is more versatile (beings zoom). I may fly with this lens at some time, but very happy with the Sigam 8mm results still for aerial work.

My process is to shoot 4 shots around (90 degrees rotation from each other), with camera tilted down about 10 degrees, then 1 shot straight down. The images are then stitched, and fake sky added

Using full MK electronics, with 3D lock on (gps hold and alt lock). Spent quite some time finding the best settings for gps hold, which is critical to being able to shoot a good aerial panorama. Any movement will cause stitch errors due to change in perspective.

 

Ha ha, I'm really not worried about competition. Competition is a good thing. I have help a number of people here in South Africato learn to shoot 360s and build virtual tours, and am a founding member of the Virtual Tour Associatuon of SA. We are eager to help others build sustainable businesses, and quality products in the 360 production industry.

Anyway, back to your question. GPS settings. I have read so much aboith this online, and have to agree with what many have said about it. U need to work through a process yourself, for your specific multi, with the weight and config that u have, as well as geographic location. Some things that helped me along the way:
Gps and navi on the boom (particularly for southern hemisphere where N pole mag strength is much weaker).
Start with MK defaults, and fly many sets of batteries in varying conditions, watching how the gps hold works, how it fights the wind, etc.
Get to know your system! Flat for many batteries back to back, fly 100m up for 5min at a time, over your head and nose-in (takes time to get there, challenge yourself in stages, not all at once).
Once you get very comfortable with your manual flying, and have a "relationship" with your multi, then you will be a lot more comfortable to trust it.

In my experience standard gps settings in calm conditions are almost perfect (if build quality is perfect).
In light wind std gps settings allow the multi to move about 4 or 5 meters away, then slowly correct (no fish bowl in standard settings).
Tweaking the settings, I was about to get it down to 2 meters max in light winds, and alt lock is within 1 meter.
Heavy winds the standard settings allow multi to blow off 10m too easily. This can be improved by increasing gps P, reducing gps D (depends if wind is gusty, too low gps D will make multi overshoot the gps point on return).
Play with the gps angle limit! I have had some great results with this alone. I leave it on a poti (for all flights not just test flights). When multi is struggling to get back to gps point (strong steady breezes) then I increase the gps angle limit a bit, which allows the multi to lean harder into the wind, and "fight" the wind and get to point. But if you set it too high, the angle will fight the gps D (resestance) and will cause fish bowling! If you get fish bowling, simply turn down the poti for gps tilt a little.

The short answer is there is no short answer!
Standard MK gps settings actually work pretty well in normal flying conditions.
Use the standard settings for a long time before playing with tweaking settings, or you are likely to really confuse yourself!
Take your time. It takes many many flights to fully understand how the gps hold system work in various conditions. The better you understand how it works, the quicker u can react when seeing various results.

PS: good gps settings also allow for good safety, making features like waypoints and come home work very well.
PPS: take great care to do compass calibration "perfectly". The more accurate it is, the better everything will work. Build quality is of highest importance, and bad build is the greatest cause I have seen on forums of bad performance and even crashes.

Really hope this helps others. I am by no means "the owner of the truth", but I can stress that u need to spend time on this to get improved results. If you do not have a lot of time, then use the standard settings. They work pretty well in good weather conditions.

 

I think you will find there is a quite a big difference between a standard "panorama" and a full 360x180 degree field of view image.

Looking forward to following you blog, you guys are doing some interesting work...

 

Only a pleasure Andy!

Sorry for the slow reply, I have been (mostly) offline for a few days now, busy on shoots, and a death in the family (relatives) thrown in for good measure. Hope I can answer the questions...

Wish I had a simple answer for that one, but sorry I don't. It depends so much on the weight, power, size of props, pitch, etc. Each machine is different. Even the same machine with different cameras on behaves differently (as well all know).

I can share my feelings on this though:
It is often suggested to change settings only incrementally (5 or 10 points at a time), but I find that often I do not easily see enough of a difference before and after the changes. I video all my test flights, and even when reviewing them back at home I battle to see a difference many times. So what I do is quickly work my way up the test settings (still only 10 at a time, but only a 30 sec or 1 min test flight, then land change settings, and fly again). I may start (on GPS P for example) at a setting of 90 , then 100, then 110, then 120, then 130, then notice some definite changes, then bring it back down to 110 again. Leave it there, then do other testing (on GPS D for example).

Depending on the weather (wind gusty or steady, etc), results can vary a lot!

You need to be in "advanced" mode, and go to the "Navi-Ctrl 2" tab (top right), the 4th item is "GPS angle limit". This effects how much the MK will tilt when flying in auto modes (during come home, during waypoint flight, during GPS hold).

Note: Do not think a higher number is better though, I found I rather use a much lower number. Usually about 40 (but remember to always test on your own frame / weight setup!). If wind is strong, the MK will not be able to fight the wind at this low setting, because it is "not allowed" to tilt more than "x" (40 in this case). This is why I like to have it on a poti, because I can then easily turn up to 50 or 60 or 70, without changing GPS P + D the MK will the flight the wind better. However, if you turn in too high when there is little wind, or in gusty wind, this will directly cause fish bowl effect! The reason is that the GPS D (resistance) is too high, so although the MK is now allowed to tilt more (higher tilt limit of 60 or so), the GPS D "resistance" is NOT allowing it to fly too quickly towards the GPS hold position. So it is like a father with long arms holding on his son's head, while his son tries very hard to hit the father (playfully of course), swinging his arms and trying hard, but the father easily holds the son off. Weird analogy, but I hope it helps (sorry). Basically the son will end up bouncing his energy off the father, and moving sideways more than he moves forward (fish bowl...).

If I may end off this post with a thought. I think pilots should not be trying to get "perfect GPS settings" for their MK / Cinestar, but rather should spend more time getting to know how the system actually behaves in different conditions. Get to know your machine, and get to trust its GPS system, it really is very good!

Similar to riding a bicycle, I think over time each pilot will get a "feel" for his machines, and trust the GPS more, and get to the "next level".