Hacking my way to epic aerial filming with a Phantom

[dirkclod]

Just speaking for myself.... I just fly for the hobby and it would never pay for itself for me . I do think for those that can do so legally
It would be a good investment to get that kind of smooth footage . But for now
I'll just spend my money here at da bar

And wish
Is a nice project Neil and do hope ya the best with it !!
Cool Roo bro

 

[vgt]

So the goal is to control camera angles and leave position control in the hands of the pilot. That means I want to control tilt and yaw of the camera for any drone.

The way it works is in the case of a 3 axis gimbal, we can control purely the gimbals tilt and yaw and not touch the drone. However, in the case of a 2D gimbal, like on a phantom, we actually control the gimbal's tilt and the done's yaw. It's a really interesting user experience...almost surreal because the drone yaws itself and feels like it has a mind of it's own when you're filming.

That being said, we have a super easy way to switch between manual and auto modes so you're not tied to any one method.

Oh, that's great. Wasn't clear from the video or the materials that this device was able to control the yaw of the Phantom. That makes it far more interesting. Sign me up for the beta!

 

[Neil Mathew]

Oh, that's great. Wasn't clear from the video or the materials that this device was able to control the yaw of the Phantom. That makes it far more interesting. Sign me up for the beta!

Awesome! could you just enter your email here: http://www.vertical.ai/private-beta/

Thanks

 

[BlackOpsTeamster]

So the goal is to control camera angles and leave position control in the hands of the pilot. That means I want to control tilt and yaw of the camera for any drone.

The way it works is in the case of a 3 axis gimbal, we can control purely the gimbals tilt and yaw and not touch the drone. However, in the case of a 2D gimbal, like on a phantom, we actually control the gimbal's tilt and the done's yaw. It's a really interesting user experience...almost surreal because the drone yaws itself and feels like it has a mind of it's own when you're filming.

That being said, we have a super easy way to switch between manual and auto modes so you're not tied to any one method.

Hey Neil,
That being said, since the device is capable of controlling the yaw of the Phantom, wouldn't you also be able to control the pitch and roll of the quad and give the Phantom a "follow me" like feature? Something like that as an additional feature would make the device that much more appealing to an even larger audience. Also, is there anyway to externally access the computer in the device like through Ethernet or wifi and does the device have a micro memory slot? I've been experimenting with strapping my WiFi Pineapple, which is a computer of sorts to the Phantom to carry out pen testing (at altitude LOL). If one was able to access the computer of the device through some type of interface then maybe I could also have the ability to boot up the Pineapples software and that would be awesome! I know it would probably add a little more weight but being able to have a dual use of the device opens up even more possibilities and the trade off might be worth it. Just thinking out loud...
BOT

 

[Neil Mathew]

Hey Neil,
That being said, since the device is capable of controlling the yaw of the Phantom, wouldn't you also be able to control the pitch and roll of the quad and give the Phantom a "follow me" like feature? Something like that as an additional feature would make the device that much more appealing to an even larger audience. Also, is there anyway to externally access the computer in the device like through Ethernet or wifi and does the device have a micro memory slot? I've been experimenting with strapping my WiFi Pineapple, which is a computer of sorts to the Phantom to carry out pen testing (at altitude LOL). If one was able to access the computer of the device through some type of interface then maybe I could also have the ability to boot up the Pineapples software and that would be awesome! I know it would probably add a little more weight but being able to have a dual use of the device opens up even more possibilities and the trade off might be worth it. Just thinking out loud...
BOT

Hey ! Sorry I had a take a little break while traveling. Back on the forum! So right now we're only controlling yaw because controlling the position of the drone means we need GPS + IMU information from the drone and the Phantom autopilot doesn't let you read that. They may potentially release a new autopilot soon that lets you read all data so when that happens, we'll definitely make it compatible.

Ethernet makes sense! We weren't planning to make the product hackable really but maybe we could have a version that exposed the eth interface. I'll keep you guys posted

 

[Neil Mathew]

Just a quick update. We did a test flight with a local San Francisco Film-maker - Eddie Codel - who is the founder of the new Flying Robot International Film Festival. I encourage everyone to submit films to it! We've sponsored some prizes!

Here's the video!

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[BlackOpsTeamster]

So right now we're only controlling yaw because controlling the position of the drone means we need GPS + IMU information from the drone and the Phantom autopilot doesn't let you read that. They may potentially release a new autopilot soon that lets you read all data so when that happens, we'll definitely make it compatible.

Thanks for the reply Neil,
Darn! Knowing how protective DJI is of its info I'm not going to hold my breath on them letting loose of that..

I was thinking, okay... then how about developing an add on package that incorporates GPS/IMU like the VN-200 chip from Vectornav and getting the data from that. That could possibly open up a whole new revenue stream. Well, that was until I seen the price for the VN-200, $2,100. Scratch that...

Thanks for the update Neil. Will be looking forward to new news!
BOT

 

[ianwood]

Very interested. Not for a Phantom but for an S900 + GH4 set up. Does it work on the A2?

 

[Neil Mathew]

Very interested. Not for a Phantom but for an S900 + GH4 set up. Does it work on the A2?

Yes! It absolutely works with an A2. Here it is mounted on an S900.

 

[ianwood]

I noticed it uses 2.4GHz. Not sure that's going to play nicely with Lightbridge. Any plans to switch to 5.8GHz?

 

[Neil Mathew]

I noticed it uses 2.4GHz. Not sure that's going to play nicely with Lightbridge. Any plans to switch to 5.8GHz?

We have a FPV system built in so you won't need a lightbridge at all

 

[Neil Mathew]

Hi guys. It's been a while since I updated this thread. And that's because for the last few months we've been working on something totally different. We've just launched the Vertical Studio App, that packs all our machine vision software into Android and iOS apps for DJI Phantom and Inspire - and we're handing it out to beta testers for free.

I just posted a new thread for the app here. Please check it out and let me know if you'd like to beta test

Vertical Studio - Looking for Beta Testers | DJI Phantom Forum

 

[bbfpv]

Hi guys. It's been a while since I updated this thread. And that's because for the last few months we've been working on something totally different. We've just launched the Vertical Studio App, that packs all our machine vision software into Android and iOS apps for DJI Phantom and Inspire - and we're handing it out to beta testers for free.

I just posted a new thread for the app here. Please check it out and let me know if you'd like to beta test

Vertical Studio - Looking for Beta Testers | DJI Phantom Forum

What are you using, OpenCV?

 

[Neil Mathew]

What are you using, OpenCV?

Unfortunately OpenCV is too slow. We're written out own machine learning based tracking system. we've used bits and pieces of OpenCV libraries where it was relevant though. Like pre-processing the image to extract features.

 

[NEair]

Very cool, signed up!

 

[Neil Mathew]

Very cool, signed up!

Thanks for signing up ! I'll reach out to about next steps soon!