DroneLink for MM changes everything

[LifesShort]

I think that Dronelink is an amazing piece of software. For those that are complaining about the video being jerky, remember that Dronelink is giving the Mavic Mini the ability to do something that it isn't designed to do. Dronelink gets you 90% there. Like KiloMeater said, run it through a video stabilizer, and you are good to go. Like him, I also use Davinci Resolve and it does a terrific job of eliminating the jerkiness. It's not perfect, but it's darn good. If you don't want to use a full blown video editor, there are plenty of open source (free) video stabilization solutions out there.

Just a thought on the jerkiness and the need to correct it...this must be a common problem in the world of video; otherwise, there wouldn't be so many pieces of software available to correct it. Davinci Resolve is a professional video editor and includes the ability to stabilize video. This implies that even the pros have to stabilize their videos.

I'm having fun planning missions and learning all about Dronelink. Even though I won't use this feature often, I love having the ability to easily make a 360 degree spherical panorama. Here's one of my house where I was just playing around and learning how to shoot the pano and process it. I used Microsoft ICE (free) to stitch the images.

 

[RogerDH]

Here is an example of DL orbit
two rounds: first one raw and the second is the same but stabilized via a tracker in Davinci Resolve

I tried the stabilization in Vegas Movie Studio, which does a pretty good job on hand-held video but the result was absolutely horrible: It apparently was trying to eliminate all camera motion so it handled the rotation very badly. However, I have a copy of proDAD ProDrenalin, an editor especially intended for drone and action cameras which I bought years ago because it has a good jello remover and fisheye corrector, and it turns out it has an excellent stabilization algorithm for this kind of shot. I bought it for $39, I think, but unfortunately, the price of the latest version is $75 on BHPhoto, although it is supposed to have an even better stabilizer and a lot more features -- the version I have is very limited.

This is the same video as my previous post, and I have to say, I'm very pleased with this result! This is what I was hoping for from my Mini:

 

[KiloMeater]

Yes this is significantly improved , it looks just fine now.
Even if it requires some extra work, we now have options we never had before with the MM

 

[RogerDH]

Incidentally, I just found that ProDrenalin V1 is still available for $28.45.

 

[egoldy]

Incidentally, I just found that ProDrenalin V1 is still available for $28.45.

Not sure if that has the stabilization....

The mac version is $150.. Ugh!

 

[maelstrom]

Even if it requires some extra work, we now have options we never had before with the MM

Exactly that! Dronelink will never be as good as a true waypoint capability but it's definitely the next best thing. I've just finished testing a simple waypoint mission without any clever bits and it worked perfectly. What they charge for the Hobbyist subscription is an absolute bargain for the extra features it gives you. There does seem to be quite a learning curve to get the best out of it so I'm off to watch some of the tutorials.

 

[ff22]

has anyone got any suggestions for 360 stitching software for Mac?
I only got one chance yesterday to do the pre-canned 360 image and it didnt stitch properly using PhotoshopCC, it had missing areas.
This is no doubt operator error on my part, but Id be curious as to others ideas on the matter.

I am super keen to build an interesting mission and have it take around 200-300 photos during a maybe 5 min flight, and re-run it every 30 or 60 minutes, and use a selection of the images as a hyperlapse.
It would be super cool if Dronelink included a hyperlapse function to a mission so that it only took the images that were needed on each run, so instead of having thousands of images to sort through you only had the exact images that you needed

I created a hyperlapse or timelapse (I guess there is a difference) when using the DJI Action Camera. I recorded a walk around a mountain lake continuously. Then found a Windows' app that could pull out or save every xth image from the video and then recombined those separately saved images into a new timelapse video. It took a bit of experimentation to get the the right ratio of gapping and image saving to make a reasonable outcome.

 

[zeusfl]

I have 2 days testing Dronelink with my Mavic mini and I found has too many glitches. Disconnect with weird errors, nothing smooth in the orbits, etc..
I still need to try with my M2P but I am scared. LOL.

 

[RogerDH]

Not sure if that has the stabilization....

The mac version is $150.. Ugh!

It does have stabilization:

• Automatic fisheye removal
• Stabilization of shaky footage
• Skew and Jello rolling-shutter correction
• Three options for de-noising random image sensor noise
• Batch processing for convenient loading of multiple clips to be optimized
• Simple color, brightness, and contrast adjustment tools
• Flips upside-down video right side up in case the camera was accidentally mounted upside-down
• Supports 4K and 2.7K resolutions
• Manual fine tuning features

 

[RogerDH]

I have 2 days testing Dronelink with my Mavic mini and I found has too many glitches. Disconnect with weird errors, nothing smooth in the orbits, etc..
I still need to try with my M2P but I am scared. LOL.

The only glitch I've had so far was a mission where I had three path components and it got stuck at the beginning of the third, and I haven't tried it again. What problems have you seen, or better, would you mind describing the glitches on the bug report page? Might get 'em fixed -- I think there's a big market for this on the Mini.

 

[zeusfl]

I agree.
Actually I have everything documented in screen captures. I will send more info once I am at home.

 

[adavis]

I created a hyperlapse or timelapse (I guess there is a difference) when using the DJI Action Camera. I recorded a walk around a mountain lake continuously. Then found a Windows' app that could pull out or save every xth image from the video and then recombined those separately saved images into a new timelapse video. It took a bit of experimentation to get the the right ratio of gapping and image saving to make a reasonable outcome.

Cool, thanks.

I think that I will just fly a video mission every 30 minutes for a full day and slice up the video to get what Im after ;-)

 

[maelstrom]

I have 2 days testing Dronelink with my Mavic mini and I found has too many glitches. Disconnect with weird errors, nothing smooth in the orbits, etc..
I still need to try with my M2P but I am scared. LOL.

What mobile device are you using it with? My experience with Dronelink has been good so far.

 

[zeusfl]

What mobile device are you using it with? My experience with Dronelink has been good so far.

I have an iPad Pro 11 last gen.

 

[bobzdar]

Thanks! We strongly believe there is a ton of room left for innovation and are hoping to breathe new life into space that has stagnated for quite a while.

Do you guys have any plans for a 'follow me' type of feature? I couldn't seem to find it but that seems to be the only functionality missing. Ran a few missions today and all worked perfectly, love the ability to peg altitude to either launch point or ground for hilly areas. I'm running a Galaxy s20+ and haven't seen any jerky motion or other issues so far. For $20 it's a steal - like getting a massive drone upgrade.

 

[egoldy]

Do you guys have any plans for a 'follow me' type of feature? I couldn't seem to find it but that seems to be the only functionality missing. Ran a few missions today and all worked perfectly, love the ability to peg altitude to either launch point or ground for hilly areas. I'm running a Galaxy s20+ and haven't seen any jerky motion or other issues so far. For $20 it's a steal - like getting a massive drone upgrade.

It's on the radar.

With the growing hobbyist userbase, we are reshifting our focus to roll out some more of these features that are high in demand for the hobbyists. This being one of the most requested.

 

[Kyle76]

It's on the radar.

With the growing hobbyist userbase, we are reshifting our focus to roll out some more of these features that are high in demand for the hobbyists. This being one of the most requested.

I would imagine your customer base has shifted noticeably in the past week or so based on the many comments here and on Facebook. Anything you guys can do to maximize the Mini experience is much appreciated and will hopefully be rewarding for you as a company.

 

[RogerDH]

This evening, I've been playing with what might now be my favorite feature in Dronelink: the Simulated Drone. This lets you move a viewpoint -- a position, altitude, heading and camera angle -- around in a Google Earth window and then automatically construct a flight plan destination or, if you have a path, add a waypoint or marker component from that viewpoint. It really takes a lot of the work (and especially the guesswork!) out of figuring out positions, headings and gimbal angles when you're trying to get precise framing. It doesn't have 3D buildings yet, so you do have to guess at that when it's important, but I believe that's on the development roadmap. I think Litchi has something similar, and I was looking forward to using it, so I'm really happy to find it in Dronelink!

 

[raulmavic]

A quick question for DroneLink users:

Mobile phone must be linked to internet for executing a waypoint mission ?

I always set my smarphone to 'airplane' mode for flying Mavic Mini without interference, could I keep doing it with DroneLink ?

R.

 

[KiloMeater]

I believe you need an active connection for both the plans to be retrieved and also the map to be displayed