Summary of Issue:
I’m photographing structures and I’m mostly interested in the resulting 3D model at the end.
For good results, I normally do a final circle around the structure at the same height but with the camera angled at 45°, after the normal back-and-forth photography route is finished.
Now, using DroneDeploy, I have enabled the “Orbit” feature and I’m seeing the green circle inside the plan. However, the drone does not actually fly along this circle after the end of the main mission. Instead it just returns home. The same thing actually even happens when using the simulator on the website!
Am I doing something wrong or is this just a bug?
My second (related) issue is that I seem to be unable to move the orbit circle around independently inside the plan. This is a problem when I have a plan which is irregularly shaped and includes a stretch of land plus a structure (say, a house) on one end. I would want to orbit around the house, but DroneDeploy seems to place the circle somewhat randomly for non-square-shaped plans, and I haven’t found a way to move or shape the circle independently of the rest of the plan.
I’ve also tried enabling the new “3D mode” function which just showed up for me today and is purportedly ideal for what I’m trying to do, but I can’t see any difference in the above-mentioned behaviour.
Date Issue Began:
2017/10/05 (first noticed - but I don’t know if it ever worked before)
Drone Model:
DJI Mavic Pro 2017, latest firmware as of 2017/10/05
–> however note that the problem also occurs using the simulator function on the website!
Mobile Device Model and OS version:
Android 7, Sony Xperia Z5
–> however note that the problem also occurs using the simulator function on the website!
However, the drone does not actually fly along this circle after the end of the main mission. Instead it just returns home.
We usually see this behavior when there is a poor connection to the drone, causing us to not be able to start the orbit mission. Are you flying in an area with a lot of interference?
The same thing actually even happens when using the simulator on the website!
Am I doing something wrong or is this just a bug?
You aren’t doing anything wrong: The simulator on the site does not currently support orbit.
I would want to orbit around the house, but DroneDeploy seems to place the circle somewhat randomly for non-square-shaped plans, and I haven’t found a way to move or shape the circle independently of the rest of the plan.
The orbit circle is tied to the centroid of the plan’s geometry and there is no way to move it independently.
I’ve also tried enabling the new “3D mode” function which just showed up for me today and is purportedly ideal for what I’m trying to do, but I can’t see any difference in the above-mentioned behaviour.
We introduced 3D mode to address the issues above as well as some other issues with orbit. Once you’ve enabled it via DD Labs, there should be a “3D Mode” toggle in the plan’s advanced settings section which will allow you to enable 3D mode for your plan. When toggled, we add some additional waypoints around the bounds of the plan’s geometry.
Depending on your plan’s configuration, the new waypoint lines might not be very obvious as they overlap with the edges of the plan’s geometry.
Here’s a screenshot of a plan with 3D mode disabled:
And here’s one with 3D mode enabled (note the green waypoint lines around the edge):
When the drone moves to the perimeter waypoints, it will fly so that the camera is always pointed toward the center of the plan at an oblique angle.
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