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PRE-PROGRAMMED FLIGHT PATH

Dorper#1958

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South Africa
Hi

I am new to the forum.

I am a sheep farmer and bought myself a Mavic 2 Zoom to assist with some aspects of the farming. Due to long grass at certain times of the year it is difficult to see where/when ewes have their lambs in the veld. I want to use the drone to check on the ewes but would prefer to use pre-programmed flight paths.

I have a camp which is approximately 1158 metres by 880 metres and relatively flat. The question is: If I want to determine waypoints to use for the pre-programmed flight path, how do I "split" the area in such a way that the drone covers the whole of it sufficiently to see what is going on? In effect, how many "up" and "down" flights will be required to ensure that one sees the complete area? I have no idea of how wide an area the camera will cover at a specific height to make things on the ground visible.

I hope I explain the issue properly.

Assistance will be appreciated.

Regards

Danie
 
Hi

I am new to the forum.

I am a sheep farmer and bought myself a Mavic 2 Zoom to assist with some aspects of the farming. Due to long grass at certain times of the year it is difficult to see where/when ewes have their lambs in the veld. I want to use the drone to check on the ewes but would prefer to use pre-programmed flight paths.

I have a camp which is approximately 1158 metres by 880 metres and relatively flat. The question is: If I want to determine waypoints to use for the pre-programmed flight path, how do I "split" the area in such a way that the drone covers the whole of it sufficiently to see what is going on? In effect, how many "up" and "down" flights will be required to ensure that one sees the complete area? I have no idea of how wide an area the camera will cover at a specific height to make things on the ground visible.

I hope I explain the issue properly.

Assistance will be appreciated.

Regards

Danie
Hello,

I would suggest that rather doing the math yourself, you let software do it for you. Use one of the well known mapping software packages that will fly the entire mission for you and take all the pictures you need to cover the entire field. One that comes to mind is DroneDeploy. You can sign up for free and fly missions without moving to a paid package.
 
Hi Danie,

If you manage to get something that works for you please let us know. I would like to do the same to monitor my animals.
 
Hi

I am new to the forum.

I am a sheep farmer and bought myself a Mavic 2 Zoom to assist with some aspects of the farming. Due to long grass at certain times of the year it is difficult to see where/when ewes have their lambs in the veld. I want to use the drone to check on the ewes but would prefer to use pre-programmed flight paths.

I have a camp which is approximately 1158 metres by 880 metres and relatively flat. The question is: If I want to determine waypoints to use for the pre-programmed flight path, how do I "split" the area in such a way that the drone covers the whole of it sufficiently to see what is going on? In effect, how many "up" and "down" flights will be required to ensure that one sees the complete area? I have no idea of how wide an area the camera will cover at a specific height to make things on the ground visible.

I hope I explain the issue properly.

Assistance will be appreciated.

Regards

Danie
Answers above.
Welcome to the forum from the deserts of Arizona! Enjoy.
 
I'll throw in a recommendation for DroneLink. It's not "free", but not expensive either. Just $20 for a permanent "basic" license. If you go to the next level, another $20, it's really easy to map out a drone route to shoot the whole area with overlapping photos. The learning curve is a little steep, but there are tons of tutorial videos to watch, and once understand how the software pieces all fit together, it works pretty well.

Of course, it might be arguable that you are doing this as part of your "business" and that might get you into an entirely different set of software licensing rates, not to mention possible FAA Part 107 issues.
 
I'll throw in a recommendation for DroneLink. It's not "free", but not expensive either. Just $20 for a permanent "basic" license. If you go to the next level, another $20, it's really easy to map out a drone route to shoot the whole area with overlapping photos. The learning curve is a little steep, but there are tons of tutorial videos to watch, and once understand how the software pieces all fit together, it works pretty well.

Of course, it might be arguable that you are doing this as part of your "business" and that might get you into an entirely different set of software licensing rates, not to mention possible FAA Part 107 issues.
Dronelink can work... But honestly for some (me) it can be an impossible beast to learn. After 6 weeks and hours of watching videos I still cannot program my first mission. Maybe mapping will be easier to learn? It's powerful and I hope to have a grasp on it some day, but so far it has alluded me.
 
I like DJIFlightPlanner. Works great for me.
I'm glad you mentioned that because I wasn't aware that the DJI Flight Planner even existed. I looked it up and looks like it might be perfect for the OP. I was surprised that it requires Litchi. But it's pretty low cost; $99 for the DJI flight planner and $23 for Litchi. While the combination is more expensive than Dronelink which can work on it's own I'm sure it will be a lot easier to learn... though I'm sure that there are folks that didn't find Dronelink as difficult as I have.
 
I was surprised that it requires Litchi. But it's pretty low cost; $99 for the DJI flight planner and $23 for Litchi.
It sounds like you are looking for mapping software.
Why not use something like DroneDeploy that's completely free to plan, fly and capture images?

ps .. you're replying to a 6 month old thread.
 
It sounds like you are looking for mapping software.
Why not use something like DroneDeploy that's completely free to plan, fly and capture images?

ps .. you're replying to a 6 month old thread.
Ok... I inadvertantly replied to a 6 mo old thread that popped up on the "new posts" radar. Regardless, I've learned some things already. I didn't know that DJI had a flight planner app, nor was I aware of DroneDeploy which I will look up as soon as I'm done typing. I do wish that someone would put out a tutorial- Dronelink for Dummies. I've tried to get started with Dronelink, watched hours of tutorials, tried three times to plan a mission- all failures. Litchi is easy but lacks some of the fine camera controls that I'd love to have. I haven't given up on Dronelink but am pretty discouraged having invested so much time without any results.
 
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