Map Pilot and Mavic 2 Pro

[jlancaster]

Hello,

How do you use Map Pilot for mapping missions? Specifically, I want to know how others are using the app operationally as a control station in the field. What are your settings? Are you using DJI Go 4 to set up the aircraft in any way prior to use of Map Pilot? Infinity focus? Auto Exposure? Terrain Awareness?

Part of the reason for asking is that we just flew a couple missions in which all of the acquired imagery was out of focus. I see in discussions on Map Made Easy that this used to be a problem with earlier versions, and some users were using a two finger tap on the video preview screen once the aircraft reached mapping altitude to focus the camera. However, I was under the impression that the app/aircraft should be doing this automatically.

Flight logs attached.

Thanks!

 

[AMann]

Hello,

How do you use Map Pilot for mapping missions? Specifically, I want to know how others are using the app operationally as a control station in the field. What are your settings? Are you using DJI Go 4 to set up the aircraft in any way prior to use of Map Pilot? Infinity focus? Auto Exposure? Terrain Awareness?

Part of the reason for asking is that we just flew a couple missions in which all of the acquired imagery was out of focus. I see in discussions on Map Made Easy that this used to be a problem with earlier versions, and some users were using a two finger tap on the video preview screen once the aircraft reached mapping altitude to focus the camera. However, I was under the impression that the app/aircraft should be doing this automatically.

Flight logs attached.

Thanks!

Sorry for being a bit off topic, will this app let you set up GPS points in the photos in order to create a georeferenced otthophoto?

 

[jlancaster]

Sorry for being a bit off topic, will this app let you set up GPS points in the photos in order to create a georeferenced otthophoto?

Yeah. The aircraft records a GPS location in the EXIF data header for each photograph. In software such as Metashape (formerly Photoscan) you can use these data as a reference when stitching and orthorectifying the images.

 

[brett8883]

Hello,

How do you use Map Pilot for mapping missions? Specifically, I want to know how others are using the app operationally as a control station in the field. What are your settings? Are you using DJI Go 4 to set up the aircraft in any way prior to use of Map Pilot? Infinity focus? Auto Exposure? Terrain Awareness?

Part of the reason for asking is that we just flew a couple missions in which all of the acquired imagery was out of focus. I see in discussions on Map Made Easy that this used to be a problem with earlier versions, and some users were using a two finger tap on the video preview screen once the aircraft reached mapping altitude to focus the camera. However, I was under the impression that the app/aircraft should be doing this automatically.

Flight logs attached.

Thanks!

In DJI Go 4 focus on an object that is 50 meters away or more and then switch to manual focus. This will lock in infinity focus. Then open your mapping app of choice and make sure if there’s an option for musk focus to choose that.

AFC is generally not that great on DJI drones so setting the infinity focus is much better even speaking generally so I do this for even for videos and especially automated capture modes. If you insist to focus for each individual shot then you might get better results if you program the mission to stop at each waypoint giving the camera time to autofocus. It’s almost impossible to get a good autofocus while the drone is moving.

I haven’t used Map Pilot but use Pix4DCapture which I assume is similar functionality.

 

[jlancaster]

In DJI Go 4 focus on an object that is 50 meters away or more and then switch to manual focus. This will lock in infinity focus. Then open your mapping app of choice and make sure if there’s an option for musk focus to choose that.

AFC is generally not that great on DJI drones so setting the infinity focus is much better even speaking generally so I do this for even for videos and especially automated capture modes. If you insist to focus for each individual shot then you might get better results if you program the mission to stop at each waypoint giving the camera time to autofocus. It’s almost impossible to get a good autofocus while the drone is moving.

I haven’t used Map Pilot but use Pix4DCapture which I assume is similar functionality.

Thanks. I have read about using DJI Go 4 to set the initial camera settings, however, from what I've read I understand that this is not supposed to be necessary anymore with Map Pilot. What though do you mean by "musk focus" at the end of your first paragraph.

There is a focus setting in Map Pilot that is set to infinity focus automatically. Really the app is supposed to focus when it reaches the mapping altitude, and maintain that focus throughout the mission. This is the behavior I would like. However, this seems to have failed for some reason, although the app reports that it was successful. The focus on the images is fine until you zoom in anywhere past 100%, then it is completely out of focus.

 

[brett8883]

Thanks. I have read about using DJI Go 4 to set the initial camera settings, however, from what I've read I understand that this is not supposed to be necessary anymore with Map Pilot. What though do you mean by "musk focus" at the end of your first paragraph.

There is a focus setting in Map Pilot that is set to infinity focus automatically. Really the app is supposed to focus when it reaches the mapping altitude, and maintain that focus throughout the mission. This is the behavior I would like. However, this seems to have failed for some reason, although the app reports that it was successful. The focus on the images is fine until you zoom in anywhere past 100%, then it is completely out of focus.

Manual focus sorry.

 

[brett8883]

Thanks. I have read about using DJI Go 4 to set the initial camera settings, however, from what I've read I understand that this is not supposed to be necessary anymore with Map Pilot. What though do you mean by "musk focus" at the end of your first paragraph.

There is a focus setting in Map Pilot that is set to infinity focus automatically. Really the app is supposed to focus when it reaches the mapping altitude, and maintain that focus throughout the mission. This is the behavior I would like. However, this seems to have failed for some reason, although the app reports that it was successful. The focus on the images is fine until you zoom in anywhere past 100%, then it is completely out of focus.

Well I’m not sure what you mean because if in image is in focus at 100% then it’s in focus. Past that you are increasing the size of the pixels digitally and of course this will cause fuzzy pixilation. Your only real option is to take more pictures closer to the ground to get better resolution. The camera has a limit on the amount of information it can record per image.

 

[jlancaster]

Well I’m not sure what you mean because if in image is in focus at 100% then it’s in focus. Past that you are increasing the size of the pixels digitally and of course this will cause fuzzy pixilation. Your only real option is to take more pictures closer to the ground to get better resolution. The camera has a limit on the amount of information it can record per image.

Your response here really made me question the extent I understand what is really going on here, lol. After some investigation, I found that what I was seeing is a very low res JPG thumbnail. My windows 10 laptop we were using in the field to view images didn't have any Adobe DNG codec or other software installed, and apparently the built in apps will not show you the actual RAW image without the proper codec. Anyway, images are fine and as expected when viewing in Lightroom. Thanks for the help!

 

[raylo32]

I just started using Map Pilot myself with my M2P, so far one test mission and map. First tried it with RAW photos but the Maps Made Easy site would not accept them for upload, even though that setting can be made in the Map Pilot app, got an error: jpeg only. Maybe because this was a small free map they want to minimize file size and processing time? I dunno. Not wanting to convert the images to jpeg (I don't have a batch processor) I just went and reflew the short mission in auto jpeg mode and the map looked great.

 

[raylo32]

Another data point. I flew my little test mission again today with Terrain Awareness on (compensates altitude to maintain constant AGL) and it worked perfectly. The app even provides a nice pop up box with the terrain profile overlaid with the mission altitude. This is a $ add on to the basic app, included with Business app.

Since my mission was short I had battery to burn so I closed the MapPilot app and switched to Go4 on the fly. No issues at all doing that. Also, as usual, you can abort the Map Pilot mission or auto landing by changing flight modes with the RC switch. That's what I did to abort the MapPilot landing so I could continue flying with Go4.