Missing Images

Ouch, no bueno! @Jamespipe @Yusuf @Anya

I was watching Tim’s video and it looks like he has had some dropped image issues too and I think he is using Pix4d capture but I didn’t ask him.

I’ll add that that flight above was flown at 10mph with a fast sd card. DD displays a little blink when a photo is captured and I was noticing the lack of blinks standing there helplessly and hoping. The ortho turned out ok because of the 80% sidelap.

I would have to go back and check, but I don’t think I have had this happen before with DD in earlier versions. It will be nice to get some DD feedback.

Capture
Here is another interesting finding regarding the ongoing uneven image spacing issue. I have found that it is consistently occurring with my P4P but not with my Mavic Pro. I think an earlier post referred to it being a DJI firmware issue with P4P and M200; however, this is the first definite evidence I have seen that it is happening with one drone type and not another.

Screen shot shows a mapping mission shot this afternoon. All software was latest version, updated yesterday. Left hand square was shot with P4P and shows typical irregular spacing that I have been seeing for months. After completing the western square, Owner decided that he wanted to expand the survey so I added the second eastern square with some overlap. About halfway through the eastern square, my P4P lost GPS lock and I had to abort the flight. I landed in atti mode then finished the rest of the mission with my backup drone, a Mavic Pro. You can see where the Mavic took over for the remaining (southeastern) half of the eastern most square. The photos even out nicely. This second half was flown as a continuation of the same mission plan, just like I had landed to replace a battery and then resumed the mission with the same drone (except, of course, it was actually the Mavic).

To me this pretty clearly indicates that it is an issue specific to the P4P and that it is a DJI firmware issue and not a DD issue.

Doesn’t solve the problem but at least adds another clue.

Steve

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Good data point, Steve. But I’m not convinced about it being a firmware issue. I haven’t updated the firmware on my p4p for a very long time. I don’t recall having this problem with either DD or Map Pilot in the past. If it is a p4p specific issue, I would suspect the sdk and not the firmware.

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Well, this one is ruined. We got word from Pix4D as well that it is a known issue and the “DJI SDK”. Where the heck is the firmware to fix it? I guess enough people don’t map for it to be a big enough of a problem. #djilag

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Just curious what speed was this flown at and about how long is the longest leg?

I just figured it out. This one was missed events by the PPK system so it didn’t include some of the images. I’m glad it wasn’t RTK or I would have been done. I was able to pull the full track and re-marry the images. :expressionless:

That’s better. Back to the minor gaps. Almost like a double-tap… This is a different drone and it doesn’t look quite as bad as the previous maps, but I will keep an eye one it. A ton of flights tomorrow!

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If any of you guys are on an active subscription and would like an engineer to try to identify what is going on with your hardware that is causing the dropped images, please feel free to email support@dronedeploy.com with flight links / ID’s.

A few steps I would take to troubleshoot this

  • Firmware update drone and RC
  • Reformat SD card/ Verify SD card writes at least as fast as a Sandisk Extreme
  • Slow down max flight speed in advanced
  • Move physical location when mapping to optimize RC signal and minimize interference

In our case, all of these have been done including using a different drone. I think it was identified much earlier here and backed up by the latest Pix4D comment that it is probably the DJI SDK. That team might take a look. I don’t know that there is anything we can do about it until a new firmware rolls out, if one does… Thanks!

It is generally a DJI SDK problem. It also can be due to drone malfunction, which I would not precisely call an SDK issue, although there’s some overlap. (ha… pun)

In either situation, the above steps may not solve the problem, as only DJI can truly solve it, but it may mitigate it enough to not matter.

Cool. I think the fact that several people (even ones I know about that haven’t posted on this forum) all with different P4P’s are having the same issue would clear it up a little…

Although it primarily affects P4P’s, I believe this issue is present in all of the main DJI offerings, often as a result of different reasons. P4P’s are the most popular mapping drone, and so their issues are the most widely reported.

…and that my friend is pretty much what this thread is based on. Do we want to go ahead and close/archive it as partially solved?

Feel free to handle as you wish :grinning:

Latest yuck. Just keeping this relevant so we can continue to gather data. I would ask that you would provide a view-only share link to the map if you can.

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Thank you!

This is what missing images causes…

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Yet again. This part of the map is virtually unusable. #timedshutter

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