Flight Recorder (telemetry data)

[Keith Mitchell]

The Phantom 4 User Manual says, "Flight data is automatically recorded to the internal storage of the aircraft. This includes flight telemetry, aircraft status information, and other parameters. To access these data, connect the aircraft to the PC through the Micro-USB port and launch the DJI GO app."

What is supposed to happen after I launch the DJI GO app?

Maybe something is wrong, or maybe I just don't know where to look.

 

[Meta4]

The Phantom 4 User Manual says, "Flight data is automatically recorded to the internal storage of the aircraft. This includes flight telemetry, aircraft status information, and other parameters. To access these data, connect the aircraft to the PC through the Micro-USB port and launch the DJI GO app."

What is supposed to happen after I launch the DJI GO app?

Maybe something is wrong, or maybe I just don't know where to look.

In the app you have to find the setting to enable flight data mode.
Once you do that, your computer should be able to see the Phantom's internal storage.
The flight data is stored in .dat files that aren't easily readable to mere mortals.
What are you looking for?

 

[Keith Mitchell]

In the app you have to find the setting to enable flight data mode.
Once you do that, your computer should be able to see the Phantom's internal storage.
The flight data is stored in .dat files that aren't easily readable to mere mortals.
What are you looking for?

Thanks. I found the setting and will take a look at the ugly data! What I am looking for: I'm starting a commercial drone business and one thing I would like to be able to do is to show lat/long, altitude, and camera angle for any picture that I take. It would be really great if that telemetry data could show up at the bottom of the picture, but if I could just get it I could put it on there myself if I have to. That way, if I have a contract to, say, take pictures of a cell tower every three months, it would just be a way to show the client that I take the same picture from the same place each time and give them a way to compare the pictures to their matches from previous sorties if they want to.

 

[r62ewa]

You can easily find the lat/long and altitude information stored in the EXIF of each picture, I use a free software called Exif Pilot, it also provides all details of your camera used. I don't see anywhere that you can see the camera angle, I think that is a more complicated one to figure out. I use Pix4D and their software does computations based on multiple overlapping images to determine camera angle, I'm not sure where else you could get this information.

 

[Keith Mitchell]

You can easily find the lat/long and altitude information stored in the EXIF of each picture, I use a free software called Exif Pilot, it also provides all details of your camera used. I don't see anywhere that you can see the camera angle, I think that is a more complicated one to figure out. I use Pix4D and their software does computations based on multiple overlapping images to determine camera angle, I'm not sure where else you could get this information.

Appreciate the good info. I had forgotten that the EXIF files store lat/long and altitude! The altitude appears to be reported in meters above sea level, so as long as I get some kind of base reading at ground level (e.g., taking a picture while the P4 is sitting on the ground) then I can figure out AGL for all of the pictures taken from that home point. Thanks again for the help, r62ewa.

 

[r62ewa]

Map Pilot is a photo capture app for Maps Made Easy, a cloud based photogrammetry provider and that is what their App automatically does, it takes a photo prior to takeoff to get a ground level reading.

 

[Amddurin]

In Photoshop CC, I found these data under RAW-data in the EXIF:

<x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.6-c132 79.159284, 2016/04/19-13:13:40 ">
<rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#">
<rdfescription rdf:about=""
xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/"
xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
xmlns:drone-dji="http://www.dji.com/drone-dji/1.0/"
xmlns:crs="http://ns.adobe.com/camera-raw-settings/1.0/"
xmlns:aux="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/aux/"
xmlnshotoshop="http://ns.adobe.com/photoshop/1.0/"
xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/"
xmlns:tiff="http://ns.adobe.com/tiff/1.0/"
xmlns:exif="http://ns.adobe.com/exif/1.0/">
<xmp:ModifyDate>2016-09-18T16:16:36</xmp:ModifyDate>
<xmp:CreateDate>2016-09-18T16:16:31</xmp:CreateDate>
<xmp:CreatorTool>v01.19.5266</xmp:CreatorTool>
<xmp:MetadataDate>2016-09-18T16:16:36</xmp:MetadataDate>
<dc:format>image/jpeg</dc:format>
<dc:description>
<rdf:Alt>
<rdf:li xml:lang="x-default">DCIM\100MEDIA\DJI_0069.JPG</rdf:li>
</rdf:Alt>
</dc:description>
<drone-dji:AbsoluteAltitude>-44.76</drone-dji:AbsoluteAltitude>
<drone-dji:RelativeAltitude>+10.80</drone-dji:RelativeAltitude>
<drone-dji:GimbalRollDegree>+0.00</drone-dji:GimbalRollDegree>
<drone-dji:GimbalYawDegree>+78.90</drone-dji:GimbalYawDegree>
<drone-dji:GimbalPitchDegree>-15.80</drone-dji:GimbalPitchDegree>
<drone-dji:FlightRollDegree>+2.10</drone-dji:FlightRollDegree>
<drone-dji:FlightYawDegree>+78.00</drone-dji:FlightYawDegree>
<drone-dji:FlightPitchDegree>-1.70</drone-dji:FlightPitchDegree>
<drone-dji:FlightXSpeed>+0.00</drone-dji:FlightXSpeed>
<drone-dji:FlightYSpeed>+0.00</drone-dji:FlightYSpeed>
<drone-dji:FlightZSpeed>+0.00</drone-dji:FlightZSpeed>
<drone-dji:CamReverse>0</drone-dji:CamReverse>
<drone-dji:GimbalReverse>0</drone-dji:GimbalReverse>
<crs:Version>7.0</crs:Version>
<crs:HasSettings>False</crs:HasSettings>

Maybe you can use the data for Gimbal to calculate the camera angle?

Rene