A flew a couple of large missions last week and noticed something that bugged me.
Firstly, having flown the mission at a slow 2-3m/s or whatever it is, instead of travelling all the way back to the opposing side of the map to start it’s 3D leg of the flight, would it not be more sensible to stay put and start the 3D part from the perimeter waypoint it’s currently at? Why fly across the map only to pass back over the same perimeter spot it was at 20 minutes earlier?
Secondly, if for any reason it has to fly back to the opposing side for whatever reason, is there a reason it has to do it at the same 2-3m/s it’s been taking photos at? Can it not fly over there at the maximum speed I have it set to in the settings?
Thanks for swinging by the DroneDeploy Forum. As for the 3D mode feature, the perimeter capture initiates when the drone finds the closest waypoint. However, we have noticed that, sometimes, it initiates the perimeter capture from the first waypoint (not ideal). That being said, this is a known behavior and we have registered it in our system for further analysis.
In regards the flight speed when you are using 3D Mode, the drone speed is set following the side overlap and the mission altitude. The higher the sidelap and the lower you fly, the drone’s speed would be reduced. You can try adjusting those parameters if you want your drone to fly faster.
We appreciate you sharing your experience with us James. I’ll make sure to communicate these points to our flight team so that they can further investigate and improve our flight app.
Thanks Andrea. What you have described is what it did - flew back to the first waypoint on both occasions. I had wondered if it was a bug and it made no sense for it to have been by design.
I recognise that it was flying the mission at a low speed due to its high percentage of overlap and low altitude and am perfectly acceptable of it. My problem was that the map being the size it was, its first first waypoint was some distance from the last and so when it began its journey to the other side of the map, it was several minutes before it took its first 3D mode picture. It crawled across the sky and I wondered if it could have been sped up.
Now however it travelling that distance is confirmed as a bug, there’s little point in asking it to speed up.
I always rotate the flight path to line it up. Of course, ending its mission at the opposite end of the sky to that it started, if there’s a bug there is a little I can do to correct it.
I didn’t appreciate however, there was a method of flying 3D mode separately. How is that done?
Just making sure you knew that you could rotate the flight plan so that the last waypoint was as close to the beginning of the orbit as possible.
Apologies on the separate 3Dbmode suggestion. That feature has not been released.
No need to apologise Michael. The way I see it is we are all in this together and I’m grateful for any advice I can get. Thank you.
In terms of the start and end points, I would love to be able to determine which corner of the grid the first waypoint should be. I know I can flip the direction around and around, but having dictated the route I don’t seem to be able to influence which end of the route the first waypoint is. Any ideas?
J.
Whereas I have experimented through a dozen or so directions, two of which as you say are the most optimal, I can’t seem to shift the first waypoint. Effectively I want to run either of the two optimal routes in reverse, starting with the last waypoint first.
