I am trying to shoot a property straight down with multiple images and i was thinking of using way points and have a few questions. i have kind of shied away from using gps because it makes me a little nervous. First, i was wondering about the compass and making sure it is calibrated correctly. As i understand the compass is critical when using gps functions, so i want to make sure everything is working correctly. What do i look for in the gpx data to know if the compass is working correctly? Second, i was looking at the way point tutorial from quadrocopter and i noticed they use a point of interest (poi) for their flight plan. Is this used as the focal point of the copter? If i am just shooting straight down do i need a poi? finally and probably the least important is using the way point events to fire my camera as i reach way point. Does anyone have any experience with setting this up? i am a little lost on how to get that aspect to work. I attached a screen shot of a way point flight plan i made up just as a practice to see if i have everything down correctly and to kind of show what i'm trying to do. Any info you could help me with id really appreciate it. thanks guys
Apart from Jeff Scholl (who did the demo video), I'm not sure too many folks on the forum have used WP flying. Similarly, I'm not sure who might have used the camera trigger feature. It certainly never hurts to have the compass properly calibrated. Personally, I would avoid WP flying in these kinds of situations -- it would not play well if something goes wrong and you were not seen to be in control of the aircraft. Andy.
You should be ok with GPS and Position hold if you are using 90J or older firmware. I use it all the time for property shoots. I would advise against using waypoint flying especially if you are using 2.0 firmware or higher. For property shoots I simply hook up an intervelometer and set it for every 2-3 seconds and then fly around. TO check the GPS compass if its working correctly look at the magnet field data on the main page of the GPS. It will give you a min, avg, and max number. iF its off you will see a warning next to those numbers.
G'Day Chris, I use waypoint flying for survey work, and the generation of orthomosaics and DEMs. I remember having the same feeling about being a little apprehensive to start when using them, however the functionality works really well. The best bet it to make sure you have the MK wifi module hooked up, and go and find a wide open space and try it out. As for triggering on waypoints, so far I have not dine that, I have either set the intervolterometer on the camera to fire every couple of seconds, or manually triggered the camera. After framing. The POI feature works well and is more for flying around something, if you are looking straight down on an object a regular waypoint would work just fine.
@Dave, when you use the intervalometer doesn't your FPV get messed up. I tried using a 2-3 second timer but when the camera takes a shot I loose my FPV. I had to hook up the cable release to make it work.. so I'd only loose visual of my target when I told the camera to take a picture.
When I use the intervalometer, it's controlling the payload camera not the separate FPV camera, Tyler. Not sure what Dave is doing though. Andy.
@Andy - yeah ok.. that makes sense. You still couldn't compose though - which could be a problem.. no?
If you fly fast, yeah, but otherwise you can get a pretty good overlapping photomosiac. I use the FPV Smart On Screen Display to maintain a constant heading or use linear ground features in the FPV video. But I do not shoot to get photogrammetry, more to get larger resolution images that are stitched together. Andy.
It blacks out every time it takes a picture but it comes back on. It's a little tricky but it gives me enough live video to frame.
Just wondering what the wifi module is. Not sure i have that hooked up. thanks for the tips guys. i appreciate it.
http://www.quadrocopter.com/Xbee-3DR-Radio-Sets_p_551.html (Strictly speaking this is not Wifi as it's not in the 2.4Ghz band). It's a wireless more-or-less replacement for the USB cable between MK Tool and the Copter, so you plug one end into your PC and the other into the MK Navigational or Flight control board. Why "more-or-less?" Never try to do a firmware upgrade with it -- always use an actual USB cable. The wireless link is not as reliable as the cable, and MK's programmer's have not created a communications protocol that can deal with the unreliability, so you may "brick" a controller. Andy.
Or it could be the actual WI232 Range extender setup which can be used with an Android device to program waypoints since we are discussing waypoint flying? MK doesn't really use WiFi. WI232 can also be used for connection to MKTools.