This is a huge feature request to add offline map downloads, projects and terrain awareness. Lost without these features.
This would be amazing!
Thank you Mike for this suggestion, we definitely hear you! Our team is looking into this capability for implementation in the future.
Right now, we’re focused on making the current product more reliable, but we’ll back to producing enhancements soon.
This is why I use the Yuneec H520 with DataPilot. Here you have offline Maps and the routes are also stored on the remote: survey, waypoint, orbit, structure, corridor, (all with POI support) and camera angles (tilt and pan) are freely chose-able.
All mission modes work with terrain awareness with up to 1 m selectable accuracy. But I would suggest only up to 5 m because higher vertical resolutions could create an excessive number of waypoints for varying altitudes (hights).
I later upload the E90 camera’s imagery to DD and can (or have to) create my cropping border to my needs.
You are also able to combine different mission types over one area or combine even different fields or locations. I sometimes even upload new missions to the H520 while it is in the air. E.g. when noticing that a just flown mission should or could be re-flown at a lower altitude…
I use the DD app only on my old trusted P3 with an NDVI (NIR) modified 4K-Camera (12MP, RGN). With Android running on an old Samsung Galaxy Tab S2 (SM-T719) I get reliable results. I use this “team” for my comparison flights (reference) between RGB-Senosr results (of my H520/E90) and NIR-results in agriculture. So it is all NADIR only and no “specialities”.
EDIT: I forgot to mention that offline work can be quite substantial when working in Ag-Areas. And: from time to time it can happen that the Yunnec DataPilot on the ST16S (flight planner of PX4 “Qgroundcontrol”) needs to reload or update (?) the elevation data (online) for a map area, although it is stored with the actual map on the remote control. Otherwise “terrain follow” would not work in the area. (In the sense of “better safe than sorry” this limitation or warning is for sure acceptable.)
I too have been using a Yuneec H520 for over 3 years and there are many things about it that are of a completely different philosophy which work well. Mostly a departure from DJI which DroneDeploy is bound to. I was actually on the beta team that built the survey planning portion of the software and while it is sufficient they decided to abandon the project well before we got any deeper into the effort. Who told you there was a 1m resolution surface? That is not true or at the very least misleading. The surface that are used for Yuneec’s Terrain Following are the same as everyone else’s and are typically 5-10m resolution. The only variable possible is at what resolution the flight line is tied to that surface as in how far apart the vertical points of intersection are. In the sense of offline mode you still have to cache the maps and surfaces so it is really a completely different method than what DroneDeploy has engineered and is not possible with DJI products. The ST16 can only be connected to one source of WiFi at a time so you are either connected to the internet or connected to the E90 so there is absolutley no internet connectivity expected by DataPilot when the E90 is connected.
Hello Michael,
interesting fact that you were on the beta team for the DataPilot survey planning option Really must be about 3 years ago.
With “1 m” accuracy I meant the “Tolerance” value setting within the survey options tab. I just checked it again on the actual ST16S: 10 m tolerance is the default value and 0 m is the lowest possible entry. The app will than calculate as many waypoints with differing altitudes as needed to stay within that tolerance based on the STS-99 mission DTM. As already mentioned I would recommend 5 m as the smallest tolerance, because otherwise your mission map could get cluttered by “hundreds” of waypoints. For the screenshot’s example mission I had a clearance for BVLOS operation limited to 50 m AGL in this area. So I chose 50 m mission altitude and 0 m terrain follow tolerance in order to not violate the 50 m AGL limitation requested by the permission. The app actually stopped working being confronted with 561 waypoints…
So as of today I would choose 45 m altitude and 5 m tolerance.