So I’ve been experimenting on a 8-acre construction site with my Phantom 3 Advanced. Today was my third pass after reading about adding additional shots at different elevations and camera angles to improve the 3D map. So I ran a normal mission via Drone Deploy, then I flew around the site, admitedly not in a very uniform pattern, at 100 foot elevation instead of 175 feet where I ran the initial mission and with the camera angle pointed at about 45 degrees just to the point the sky wasn’t in the photo.
It definitely improved the 3D rendering of the building and equipment, etc.
What I’m wondering is if there is a way in the Drone Deploy app or the DJI go app to run the second lower altitude 45-degree angle path in a more uniform automated way? I don’t need the 3D rendering to be anywhere ‘perfect’ but I’m just wondering what technique gives you the best results without having to spend a ton of time photographing? I’m new to the Phantom and still learning the capabilities of the app. The technique I used seem to work pretty darn good and it only took about 14 minutes of flight time. But I really prefer to just do everything via auto-pilot.
Glad to hear you saw an improvement when adding in the oblique shots, @consultant . We’ve been working intensively on our apps to focus on reliability and the experience of using them, and thus have not revisited the oblique imagery input yet. Thanks for your feedback!
I am running the same bird and have been experimenting with the 3D mapping as well, although I am still in the early stages of developing specific procedures to obtain the best results. First off, starting small has seemed to help me…if your home or business is a suitable place to test out some new techniques, or a family or friends home works well. Second, DJI’s pilot app is very well put together and I would suggest getting to know the alternate flight modes (Point of Interest, Follow Me, Waypoints, etc.). After flying a mission through Drone Deploy, I switch back to DJI’s app and use Point of Interest and Waypoints to fly a second mission at a lower altitude, with a fixed camera angle (something like 45 degrees) to capture oblique photos. The bird will take off and fly the mission on its own and all I have to do is snap photos along the way. It is the most automated way I have found to capture the oblique photos to improve the 3D maps.
Ya initially I didn’t realize the app did Waypoints. Obviously using one app is preferred so all DroneDeploy has to do is:
(a) allow you to change the camera angle setting for a mission
(b) allow you to change the flight pattern since you want to probably at least do your oblique mission from two angles (maybe it already has this) I guess ideally you would want to fly a criss-crossing zig-zag pattern.