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I've been using Pix4D Capture to help map race tracks. But I'm intrigued by DJI's GS Pro. Has anyone used both? I'd love to hear real experiences & opinions.
DJI GS Pro vs Pix4D Capture?
- Thread starter Ed Martin
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I liked the settings but the 99 waypoint limit made it not workable for me. Take a look at Map Pilot by MapsMadeEasy.
Commented on this in the other thread but switching from a hover and shoot mode to capture at equal distance intervals should alleviate any way point limitations. I'm flying some very large construction projects (multi-battery) so I can't imagine it not working for others use cases as well.
I've used both and Pix4D is nice in that it is simple to start up and use but I don't like that you are limited to squares/rectangles. Most all the areas I fly require more unique polygons. For strictly nadir mapping, DJI GS Pro has a lot more flexibility in terms of settings and preplanning/saving missions.
I've used both and Pix4D is nice in that it is simple to start up and use but I don't like that you are limited to squares/rectangles. Most all the areas I fly require more unique polygons. For strictly nadir mapping, DJI GS Pro has a lot more flexibility in terms of settings and preplanning/saving missions.
Indeed it does. I've used it quite a bit too. It works well but I do feel like it's a bit glitchy at times and could still use some refining.
I've only used GS Pro on single battery missions, how does it cope with multi battery (as in how does it operate)
I use Map Pilot and I love it. It does irregular figures, centerline missions, multiple batteries, adusts the mission to the terrain, allows pre flight planning and more. The new centerline mission allows you to define a flight path with angle points and then add parallel lines on each side. Just what I needed for urban street projects.
I have been using P3 Advanced with pix4d capture for mine mapping.All was fine till I upgraded the camera to a 4k professional.Now the shots have become irregular .I upgraded the drone firmware,Any ideas_
Mission Planner is the best... free, open source and with a great community of dev and modders behind...
I disagree personally, I've had a few issues with it in the past, I prefer UGCS which is free going on to a premium paid version depending on needs
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You can change Capture mode to time interval mode. In this mode no waypoint limits.
The iPad version allows for polygons, but the Android does not. At least in the most recent versions.
I miss the original DJI Ground Station app because it allowed you to adjust the elevations of the individual waypoints. We flew a site with a vertical change of several hundred feet and couldn't adjust that side of the mission to fly higher to accommodate the change. I'll have to look into some of the other apps that were mentioned.
It's a hijack to the thread, but really Dji ultimate flight along with mission planner is the way to go for me
I think you're comparing apples to oranges. Mission Planner is like Litchi and oriented towards aerial videography (among other uses) whereas DJI Ground Station, Pix4D, Map Pilot, DroneDeploy, and even UgCS are generally photogrammetric survey and mapping tools.
As for mapping, I really wanted to like Map Pilot, especially because it could auto-adjust AGL to ground elevation [something lacking in DroneDeploy]. But Map Pilot repeatedly crashes (I generally use a nearly virgin 256GB iPad 4). With DroneDeploy, mixed terrain missions have to be broken into sub-missions to account for ground elevation changes if you want to maintain (reasonably) consistent AGLs.
Personally, I feel photogrammetric survey and mapping apps that fail to take into account battery swaps or provide AGL 'terrain following' are deficient.
YMMV
Maybe you misunderstood which mission planner I'm referring to; it's Mission Planner Home — Mission Planner documentation
Purely for way point planning
As for ultimate flight it can actually take into account terrain changes...
Purely for way point planning
As for ultimate flight it can actually take into account terrain changes...
on Gs Pro it will come back finish its mission and you can continue from your last point on a new battery.
We have used PIx4D, drone deploy, and GS pro with our Phantom, Inspire1, and Inspire2. Pix4d was pretty much out right away cause you couldn't manipulate the area. drone deploy we used quite often but it crashes a lot and have had it do complete missions and not taken one photo it also didnt work well with our x5 camera on the inspire pro. Recently during a mapping flight our inspire pro hit a tree while using drone deploy. long story but all we ever found was the battery and a broken prop. My thoughts were lets get the inspire2 with front facing collision avoidance and that wouldnt be a problem.
In comes GS pro. what i like about it is that it looks and feels the same as djiGO and the mission planning is almost identical to drone deploy. letting you manipulate your area quite a bit. it says 99 waypoint max but if you make too many adjustments or delete a few perimeter changes it is fine. Here is the major kicker for me. During flight and i cant figure out why, the drone flys forward to its start point, rotates and flys the entire area sideways and backwards which for a phantom 4 or inspire 2 completely eliminates the collision avoidance. I tried to figure out a way around this but have been unsuccessful. One nice bonus is when mapping large areas you can continue missions with multiple batteries
So im still on the fence but i do like a lot of what the gs pro has to offer and the app has been reliable so far for us. Its just the flying sideways and backwards seems really stupid
In comes GS pro. what i like about it is that it looks and feels the same as djiGO and the mission planning is almost identical to drone deploy. letting you manipulate your area quite a bit. it says 99 waypoint max but if you make too many adjustments or delete a few perimeter changes it is fine. Here is the major kicker for me. During flight and i cant figure out why, the drone flys forward to its start point, rotates and flys the entire area sideways and backwards which for a phantom 4 or inspire 2 completely eliminates the collision avoidance. I tried to figure out a way around this but have been unsuccessful. One nice bonus is when mapping large areas you can continue missions with multiple batteries
So im still on the fence but i do like a lot of what the gs pro has to offer and the app has been reliable so far for us. Its just the flying sideways and backwards seems really stupid
Hammer, I too tried DJI's Ground Station (GS) Pro. I decided to wait until DJI removes the waypoint limit and "enhances" the manner in which it runs missions. (Not saying its a bad app or that there won't be a lot of folks whose needs it will easily meet. It just didn't meet mine.)
I've had reasonably good success with DroneDeploy (DD), with a few exceptions. DD claims that they made some upgrades to its site and its app. This is based on the iOS App Store update information and some recent email exchanges with the company that I have yet to test.
My biggest beef has always been DD's failure to support true AGL (i.e. conform AC altitude to changes in ground elevations) which affects both image capture area, overlap, and resolution. The app does, however, perform (for the most part) more reliably than I've experienced with other apps when mapping with a P4P (for example and most notably, failures with Map Pilot [MP] which I need to reevaluate now that DJI has released new firmware).
I don't use DD's image processing due to the limits that they impose per mission. But, for the most part, I do find that the AC generally always stays on mission; even when when telemetry appears to drop. (In other words, the AC reliably collects and saves images to the AC's SD card and stays on mission even when the app behaves as if telemetry has dropped.)
TL;DR - If it's any consolation, the P4P's obstacle avoidance actually did kick in for me on one particular mission where I was imaging at 200' relative to my starting point (because relative is all that DD knows how to do). The mission ran a grid east to west into some foothills where there was a possibility that ground elevation might exceed mission altitude. I figured one of three possibilities would occur: (1) the mission would run its course without triggering obstacle avoidance; (2) obstacle avoidance would fail, DD would fly the bird into the side of a hill, and I'd have to go hike across the desert to go hunting for it; or (3) obstacle avoidance would kick in and we'd see what happened next.
DD and the AC chose Option 3. When ground elevation exceed mission elevation the AC just stopped proximate to the hillside, but did not execute a RTH. It just hung out and hovered near the hillside. (Perhaps they were bonding.) So I manually executed a RTH from the controller and re-ran that portion of the mission again at a slightly higher altitude. This underscores why maintaining at least a minimum AGL is important.
The hillside experience raised another deficiency with DD with respect to resuming a mission for any issues other than battery changes. Apparently, DD stored the last successful waypoint, but kept the information to itself. Then the app decided to resume from an entirely illogical waypoint. So if I wanted to complete the remainder of the mission while avoid the problem waypoint(s), determining an alternative waypoint to resume from was counterintuitive and a painful process.
I've got a small project pending and will be running comparative missions in both DD and MP. Between recent firmware releases and purported app fixes I'm hoping to see improvements. If so, I'll report back. Neither DD or MP are the only tools out there, but I like them well enough to try to "encourage" them to up their game.
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