Drone Harmony - Creating Missions by flying them first

[guest112]

Hello.

Great idea in draw the volumes and let the app make the survey. Nice!

One thing that i didn't find in the app was a flight time / battery control function.

If i generate a site scan with a big area or far from de liftoff point the app identifies that?

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CreativeBR

CreativeBR, thanks for trying Drone Harmony out! At the moment the app does not give warnings when you start flying a plan longer than what your battery can handle. We intend to improve the handling of the battery and the related safety features with the following updates. This will include flight time computations, number of full batteries needed to complete the flight and perhaps some warnings when the planned flight is too long for the battery life.

What we do have at the moment is an estimate of the number of waypoints that will be generated in the form of the Top-Down scan: when you select a height above the scanned objects, the estimated number of waypoints appears below the altitude value. This number is indicative of the complexity of the flight, but is of course not the same as flight time.

Many thanks for the feedback and looking forward to more feedback!

DH Team

 

[guest112]

I have created a site mission to a 15m squared struture and seems that each of 3 flight plans created have it's own takeoff and land command. Is that right?

CreativeBR, This is correct: the Site Scan generates at the moment several independent flight plans that together cover the scene object you chose to scan. The start and landing point of each such plan is placed where you chose the start/landing point to be. You can however treat them as completely independent plans and, e.g. move the start point of one plan to a new location, while keeping all other start points at the same original spot. Also, when you start flying a plan, you can choose the action at the landing spot (land/hover/...), and this does not influence the action at the landing spot for other plans: when you fly another plan later you will be asked this question again.

In the near future we intend to provide an option to connect all plans in a Site Scan to one long plan that can be executed at once (and hence you will only have one liftoff and landing location).

Hope this answers your question. Let us know is something is still unclear.

DH Team

 

[guest112]

I'm trying this tomorrow.. There's an old school I've been wanting to video like this. I always use Litchi, but it doesn't have this functionality.

jimmybbq, Thanks for trying Drone Harmony out!

 

[jimmybbq]

I tried flying with this app yesterday. clicked the record flight button and then flew around my yard for a minute or so.. after finally getting to the screen with the play button, when I pushed it, the drone started moving and even turned a corner, but then got behind a tree and just sat there.. I wasn't behind a tree in my manual flight.. Is there something somewhere that has a step-by-step how to do this? It took me awhile to find the right screen. I'm sure I probably did something wrong but...... I'll watch the video above again to see what I may have done incorrectly..


Update.. so, I tried this again when I got home from work, in my front yard... just a simple around a tree, over a car and back... When convert it to a flight plan and hit play, it immediately starts heading for my house, I switched to "s" mode and brought it down... attached is a screen shot of the plan. I don't know why it placed the plan on my house.. I was 10' from the house, never did fly the drone closer than maybe 12' from the house... ?? it's like it move the whole plan over toward the house by 10 feet or so?

 

[guest112]

I tried flying with this app yesterday. clicked the record flight button and then flew around my yard for a minute or so.. after finally getting to the screen with the play button, when I pushed it, the drone started moving and even turned a corner, but then got behind a tree and just sat there.. I wasn't behind a tree in my manual flight.. Is there something somewhere that has a step-by-step how to do this? It took me awhile to find the right screen. I'm sure I probably did something wrong but...... I'll watch the video above again to see what I may have done incorrectly..


Update.. so, I tried this again when I got home from work, in my front yard... just a simple around a tree, over a car and back... When convert it to a flight plan and hit play, it immediately starts heading for my house, I switched to "s" mode and brought it down... attached is a screen shot of the plan. I don't know why it placed the plan on my house.. I was 10' from the house, never did fly the drone closer than maybe 12' from the house... ?? it's like it move the whole plan over toward the house by 10 feet or so?

Hi jimmybbq,

It is hard to see exactly what happens from your screenshot. There definitely seems something to be off and we are sorry for your experience, as in it should not happen what you described. What about your recorded manual flight, is that showing at the right location(s) on the map?

There are a few things that can influence the outcome of reflying a manually recorded mission. Let us walk you through them step by step, I recommend you check them and then do a retry:

1. Compass Calibration: Your drone contains a compass and if this compass is not calibrated well the flight precision can suffer. You can calibrate that compass with the DJI GO app (compass calibration will be added to DH at a later stage). Here is an excellent Mavic forum thread on calibrating the Mavic: Compass Calibration Guide
2. When you record a flight the altitude of the waypoints will be measured and stored relative to your liftoff altitude. If you refly the mission, it is best to start the mission from the same liftoff spot in order to keep the same absolute altitudes when reflying.
3. When you convert your recorded flight to a flight plan you have different options:
   1. Plan Using Photos: Connects your recorded WPs (Photos) with straight lines nothing more. Your recorded WPs (Photos) are part of the new flight plan.
      
   2. Plan Using Trajectory: Creates a mirror of the recorded flight by placing new WPs along the recorded flight trajectory. Your recorded WPs (Photos) are part of the new flight plan.
      
   3. Smooth Plan Using Photos: Creates a smooth flight plan through the recorded WPs (Photos). Your recorded WPs (Photos) are part of the new flight plan.
   
   I quickly went to the park to test if something is wrong in the plan computations and also to illustrate to you what happens for each of these options.
   
   My recorded flight:
   
   
   
   
   1. Plan using photos:
   Here the plan creates at each picture location a waypoint and connects them with straight lines. The small dashed yellow lines at corners (hard to see in the picture) shows the curve smoothing that DJI themselves do when you fly a non-stop mission (i.e. fly-by or video recording). The plan's liftoff (red triangle) is not exactly at the same location but you can still start from your orignal place (i.e. where the drone icon is in the picture.). The drone will start and go to the first waypoint with altitude 3 meters.
   
   
   
   
   2. Plan using trajectory:
   Here the computed plan follows closely the trajectory of my manually flown plan. It also places waypoints at the locations of the pictures but creates additional ones in order to ensure the drone will follow the trajectory. The plan's liftoff (red triangle) is not exactly at the same location but you can still start from your orignal place (i.e. where the drone icon is in the picture.). The drone will start and go to the first waypoint with altitude 1 meter.
   
   
   
   
   3. Smooth Plan Using Photos:
   Here the computed plan looks quite different in that DH computes a smooth curve through the points where I have taken pictures. The waypoints of the pictures are included in this path but many additional ones have been created in order to ensure a smooth curve. The plan's liftoff (red triangle) is not exactly at the same location but you can still start from your orignal place (i.e. where the drone icon is in the picture.). The drone will start and go to the first waypoint with altitude 3 meters.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. GPS location quality: Some locations have very bad GPS reception. You can easily check how good it is by connecting to the drone and compare its location on your google map. Is it showing up where it is supposed to be? How many GPS satellites are found at your location? Unfortunately in the case that the GPS reception is not good at your location (~<= 6 satellites) then there is nothing we can do.

We'll think of more possible reasons and add them to above list. Keep us updated, we'll do the same and hopefully we can resolve this issue quickly.

Best regards,
DH Team

PS: We updated our FAQ to include the above explanations on flight plan conversion:
Drone Harmony - FAQ for Mission Planner for DJI Drones

 

[jimmybbq]

Hi jimmybbq,

It is hard to see exactly what happens from your screenshot. There definitely seems something to be off and we are sorry for your experience, as in it should not happen what you described. What about your recorded manual flight, is that showing at the right location(s) on the map?

There are a few things that can influence the outcome of reflying a manually recorded mission. Let us walk you through them step by step, I recommend you check them and then do a retry:

1. Compass Calibration:........................

We'll think of more possible reasons and add them to above list. Keep us updated, we'll do the same and hopefully we can resolve this issue quickly.

Best regards,
DH Team

PS: We updated our FAQ to include the above explanations on flight plan conversion:
Drone Harmony - FAQ for Mission Planner for DJI Drones

Ok, I think when I started the recording I was on the ground props NOT spinning yet.. pushed rec button, started flying... When I went to replay the flight, I may have been in the air already and probably not in the same spot... Also the only option i get is "Plan using Trajectory" I do not get the other two.. I did calibrate beforehand, I had 12+ sats... I'll try again this weekend

 

[guest112]

Ok, I think when I started the recording I was on the ground props NOT spinning yet.. pushed rec button, started flying... When I went to replay the flight, I may have been in the air already and probably not in the same spot... Also the only option i get is "Plan using Trajectory" I do not get the other two.. I did calibrate beforehand, I had 12+ sats... I'll try again this weekend

Hey jimmybbq,

You only get the other two options if you have successfully taken photos during your manually recorded flight. For these two options the location and orientation of the drone at each place where you took a picture is required for computing the flight path.

Did you take any pictures during your recorded manual flight?

Best regards,
DH Team

 

[jimmybbq]

I did not.. I will try that this weekend.. I'm not giving up. I accept the fact that this is mostly user error.

 

[guest112]

I did not.. I will try that this weekend.. I'm not giving up. I accept the fact that this is mostly user error.

Thats the spirit! We also accept the fact that our documentation is not yet where it should be. So we are here and happy to help.