waypoints vs virtual sticks

[ninja_geezer]

ok so simple question are true waypoints flown from within the drone rather than virtual sticks smoother ?
ive tried dronelink and maven but to me its not as smooth as i would like any thoughts ?
we know no for sure DJi are not going to add waypoints to the MA2. maybe not even the M3 !

 

[surfbird]

I've been working hard to get virtualsticks smooth.
The fix is to set the gimbal in FREE-mode, but its restricted in the SDK, so it cant be done from there. So I had to bypass the sdk all completly.

The problem is, that when in virtualstick mode the gimbal always in some kind of follow mode. And that follow mode isn't very well implemented, it's stutters when doing slow yaw-movements. It its windy it gets even worse.

When in waypoint-mode the gimbal is in another mode, where the gimbal is much smoother and doesn't follow the yaw in the same way.

I'm trying it out here:

Virtualstick, super smooth (ok not completly, it was the first try)

So, the answer is Yes, virtualstick can be smooth, but you have to do the setup in i very very certain way. Sofar I havn't seen any other app doing that.

Can you upload any examples of your not so smooth film, Im very interested to try my fix in the same conditions.

If anyone is interested in this I can upload a good demonstration video where you can see how bad virtualsticks really is.

Thanks, very good question, has boothered me for years, I find it strange no one has complained about this until now.

 

[ninja_geezer]

I've been working hard to get virtualsticks smooth.
The fix is to set the gimbal in FREE-mode, but its restricted in the SDK, so it cant be done from there. So I had to bypass the sdk all completly.

The problem is, that when in virtualstick mode the gimbal always in some kind of follow mode. And that follow mode isn't very well implemented, it's stutters when doing slow yaw-movements. It its windy it gets even worse.

When in waypoint-mode the gimbal is in another mode, where the gimbal is much smoother and doesn't follow the yaw in the same way.

I'm trying it out here:

Virtualstick, super smooth (ok not completly, it was the first try)

So, the answer is Yes, virtualstick can be smooth, but you have to do the setup in i very very certain way. Sofar I havn't seen any other app doing that.

Can you upload any examples of your not so smooth film, Im very interested to try my fix in the same conditions.

If anyone is interested in this I can upload a good demonstration video where you can see how bad virtualsticks really is.

Thanks, very good question, has boothered me for years, I find it strange no one has complained about this until now.

looks great was that using dronelink ? with a mavic air 2 ?

 

[surfbird]

mavic air 2, it's my own app. As far as I know no other app uses this technique.

It can do pans as slow as 0.1degree/s, super smooth.

I'm chooked by other jobs, so I wont be releasing it for a while. My goal is to release something when the SDK for the mini2 gets released.

The problem is that DJI might pull me developer license, since I've done some reverse engineering, they don't seems to allow that

 

[ninja_geezer]

mavic air 2, it's my own app. As far as I know no other app uses this technique.

It can do pans as slow as 0.1degree/s, super smooth.

I'm chooked by other jobs, so I wont be releasing it for a while. My goal is to release something when the SDK for the mini2 gets released.

The problem is that DJI might pull me developer license, since I've done some reverse engineering, they don't seems to allow that

looks very good ,i like dronelink but its just not smooth enough for me ,i was even thinking of trying another drone its bugging me that much im at a loss.

 

[surfbird]

Ok, I will let you try it when I'm closer to releasing it.
You seems to value smoothness as much as I do

The app is most focused on different followme functions, but they also got much smoother this way. So it's not the drones fault, it's the software. And now when DJI seems to drop waypoints for all consumer drones it makes it even more important.

 

[Tufargon]

Don't quote me on this but I'm pretty sure I saw a thread on the DL forum saying they are working on it with settings also.

 

[surfbird]

Do you have a link to that forum?

Thanks!

 

[Tufargon]

Do you have a link to that forum?

Thanks!

Topics – Dronelink

support.dronelink.com

 

[Tufargon]

I found a link to the guys youtube page here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCizGjyqRxvA91QWOuoDxsvA/videos but I can't find the post/thread in the DL forum. This is his video where he mentions that he tweaked the settings to try to make everything smoother.

 

[surfbird]

I found a link to the guys youtube page here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCizGjyqRxvA91QWOuoDxsvA/videos but I can't find the post/thread in the DL forum. This is his video where he mentions that he tweaked the settings to try to make everything smoother.

Yeah that will not help at all. The guy havnt understood the root cause of the problem.

 

[Tufargon]

The point was just to say that I thought DL has additional settings to smooth out pans. Or they are working on it.

 

[surfbird]

The point was just to say that I thought DL has additional settings to smooth out pans. Or they are working on it.

Sorry I didn't mean to sound rude
It's was very good info you gave me!

 

[Tufargon]

Sorry I didn't mean to sound rude
It's was very good info you gave me!

You didn't sound rude. All good.

 

[Tallyrver]

I found a link to the guys youtube page here https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCizGjyqRxvA91QWOuoDxsvA/videos but I can't find the post/thread in the DL forum. This is his video where he mentions that he tweaked the settings to try to make everything smoother.

That is my YouTube page,
I found if you change the motion settings you can have better results. These are the settings i used for the above video. This was using Beta 137 . I have not had a chance to try 141 with the same settings.

 

[Tufargon]

That is my YouTube page,
I found if you change the motion settings you can have better results. These are the settings i used for the above video. This was using Beta 137 . I have not had a chance to try 141 with the same settings.View attachment 124969

Awesome!! Thanks for chiming in and thanks for posting your videos about DL!

 

[maelstrom]

The problem is, that when in virtualstick mode the gimbal always in some kind of follow mode.

There is no “virtual sticks” mode, as such. It just means that the app is continuously flying the drone through the RC as though it were you doing it. If you want smooth waypoint flights using a Mini or MA2, you need a phone/tablet with the fastest processor you can get. All of the real-time calculations for the flight are being carried out on your phone/tablet and this is often a problem for older devices.

 

[surfbird]

There is no “virtual sticks” mode, as such. It just means that the app is continuously flying the drone through the RC as though it were you doing it. If you want smooth waypoint flights using a Mini or MA2, you need a phone/tablet with the fastest processor you can get. All of the real-time calculations for the flight are being carried out on your phone/tablet and this is often a problem for older devices.

Totaly wrong.

* There is a virtualstick mode and that is the only mode that you can control the drone from the api. Flight Controller - DJI Mobile SDK Documentation
* Virtual stick even has it's own DUMLdore message.
* You don't need a fast device. Specially if you use velocity as control mode.
* The gimbal change behaivor when in virtual stick mode.

If you found a way to control the drone without using virtualstick programmatically, I'm very impressed. In that case your a wizard when it comes to reversing, hands down.
Can you could share some info about that thanks!

 

[maelstrom]

Totaly wrong.

I bow to your greater knowledge. I was (mistakenly, obviously) basing my comment on information from another site. However, I’d still contend that for most waypoint missions which involve camera positioning and more complex manoeuvres, a good processor is one of the requirements to get smoother video - backed up by the Dronelink dev.

If you found a way to control the drone without using virtualstick programmatically, I'm very impressed.

Where did I say that? I can’t see how you could possibly fly missions in those drones which don’t have a native waypoint capability without virtual sticks (other than completely manually, of course).

 

[surfbird]

I bow to your greater knowledge. I was (mistakenly, obviously) basing my comment on information from another site. However, I’d still contend that for most waypoint missions which involve camera positioning and more complex manoeuvres, a good processor is one of the requirements to get smoother video - backed up by the Dronelink dev.

Where did I say that? I can’t see how you could possibly fly missions in those drones which don’t have a native waypoint capability without virtual sticks (other than completely manually, of course).

There is a 3rd possibilty. You can control the drone with the same messages that are sent by the remote. Mavic 1 uses this when flying in wifi-mode.

If anyone solves that, it would be huge. That would mean a much better control over the drone, even in activetrack modes, sport mode manual mode, higher speeds ...

I stopped looking into that when I manage to bypass the virtualstick max speed to 22m/s. It was enough for my applikation, but it's still worth to investigate more.