Is the GGO-ET good enough quality for doing industrial and commercial surveys and infrastructure inspections. Is anyone using it for this ?
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CGO-ET
- Thread starter fergalmccarthy
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Absolutely, for chimney tower inspections, electricity lines etc
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Well its an expensive camera. Autell is coming out with one and its supposed to be less expensive
Bill W.
Bill W.
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My question is whether it is good enough for commercial work such as this. It's currently at €1500 which is very cheap compared to Zenmuse XT but need a real world comparison
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Well....someone would have to have some extra money to be able to compare those. I believe yuneec is sayings its used for commercial work
Bill W.
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SPECS:
- Exothermal imaging and low light camera 1080p combined and receivable (picture-in-picture or superimposed)
- Temperature measurement and display.
- Multiple color spectra offers users selectable visualization of heat sources.
- Adjustable temperature detection scale for specific ranges.
- Gimbal mounted IR for smooth detection display.
- Large RGB sensor "sees" better detail in the dark than the human eye.
- HD and infrared simultaneous recording.
- Remote camera settings.
- 3 Axis Gimbal.
- 360 degree unlimited gimbal rotation.
- Team mode capability.
- Low distortion lens.
- CGO-ET application, available in the App Store and Google Play Store.
Bill W.
- Exothermal imaging and low light camera 1080p combined and receivable (picture-in-picture or superimposed)
- Temperature measurement and display.
- Multiple color spectra offers users selectable visualization of heat sources.
- Adjustable temperature detection scale for specific ranges.
- Gimbal mounted IR for smooth detection display.
- Large RGB sensor "sees" better detail in the dark than the human eye.
- HD and infrared simultaneous recording.
- Remote camera settings.
- 3 Axis Gimbal.
- 360 degree unlimited gimbal rotation.
- Team mode capability.
- Low distortion lens.
- CGO-ET application, available in the App Store and Google Play Store.
Bill W.
Working , experimental, New GCOET. Have been flying over agricultural field.
Proccessing data. When proficient and on top of things will post again results.
Need to understand is there going to be any upgrades to firmware dedicated to GCOET ?
Resolution tweaking ? As normal camera is proficient. When in thermal at distance , loose form , shape blurred , colours merge.
Any answers out there?
Proccessing data. When proficient and on top of things will post again results.
Need to understand is there going to be any upgrades to firmware dedicated to GCOET ?
Resolution tweaking ? As normal camera is proficient. When in thermal at distance , loose form , shape blurred , colours merge.
Any answers out there?
PatR
Premium Pilot
Most of the thermal cameras being sold at this level are using 15+ year old technology. Essentially sensors that were left over sitting on shelves after several iterations of new tech rendered them obsolete. To make any use of them the camera has to be very close to the subject. It's why they were discarded and phased out for better products. If you are willing to pay for it, good thermal imagery can be of extremely high resolution and come in small packages, but the price is very high. If the price of the ET dropped by 40% or more it could be worth using for some applications but recognize the stand off distance will have to be small.
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Working for a large utility we jumped on these as soon as they came out to add to our H. After a few flights in the field we have concluded that it's good for doing a quick investigation, but does not provide the necessary information to make a decision on criticality of an issue. A follow-up with a higher end IR tool would be required if anything was observed to be "hot"
The CGO-ET only produces analog imagery and doesn't allow you to post-process the image using IR software. This means you have to set all of your IR parameters (Emissivity, humidity, distance, reflected temperature, etc...) in flight. Once those parameters are set, it's still difficult to get the gimbal stay centered on the object to get a temperature reading.
An interesting note is how the images are stored. On-screen you can have the overlay of IR and visual which provides a nice view of what you're looking at. When you save an image you get 3 images on the SD card as well as a screenshot on the ST16 (internal storage, not SD card for some reason). The 4 total images that are saved are:
SD Card
Again, none of these files is able to be read by any IR processing software, and the exif data does not have the calibration information (I.E. the image is non-radiometric). I confirmed this with Yuneec customer support, who indicated you "may be able to extrapolate based on the color gradient" confirming they knew nothing about Infrared Thermography. Also the scale isn't present in any of the imagery so even that would be futile.
See attached for some imagery. I had to put the visual and IR image into a zip file because they would not upload (not a recognized image file error). In my honest opinion, Yuneec has a long way to go with this if it's meant to be used for commercial or industrial inspection purposes. For a quick view of roof/housing insulation or hobbyist use the CGO-ET seems to be an expensive nice to have.
The CGO-ET only produces analog imagery and doesn't allow you to post-process the image using IR software. This means you have to set all of your IR parameters (Emissivity, humidity, distance, reflected temperature, etc...) in flight. Once those parameters are set, it's still difficult to get the gimbal stay centered on the object to get a temperature reading.
An interesting note is how the images are stored. On-screen you can have the overlay of IR and visual which provides a nice view of what you're looking at. When you save an image you get 3 images on the SD card as well as a screenshot on the ST16 (internal storage, not SD card for some reason). The 4 total images that are saved are:
SD Card
- 1920 x 1080 visual .jpg - no GPS information is stored in the EXIF data
- 160 x 120 IR .jpeg file - this is the analog IR capture from the sensor. the EXIF data does indicate the "centre temperature" in degrees C (even though the controller was set to imperial and shows degrees F). Again no GPS in this files EXIF data.
- 160 x 120 IR .tif file. For some reason the .tif file comes out as all black. The EXIF reports the same centre temperature but this file does include GPS info.
- 1057 x 590 .png file with a non-matching file name to the SD files - this is a screenshot of the IR / Visual overlay from the controller.
Again, none of these files is able to be read by any IR processing software, and the exif data does not have the calibration information (I.E. the image is non-radiometric). I confirmed this with Yuneec customer support, who indicated you "may be able to extrapolate based on the color gradient" confirming they knew nothing about Infrared Thermography. Also the scale isn't present in any of the imagery so even that would be futile.
See attached for some imagery. I had to put the visual and IR image into a zip file because they would not upload (not a recognized image file error). In my honest opinion, Yuneec has a long way to go with this if it's meant to be used for commercial or industrial inspection purposes. For a quick view of roof/housing insulation or hobbyist use the CGO-ET seems to be an expensive nice to have.
Attachments
This raises a few points:
Its common for devices like this to always store their measurements in metric, and then only convert them to 'display units' at the point of display. It means that you can always read and correctly interpret the values in the files without knowing what units the user was viewing them in at the time.
The file naming convention is odd, but like that for a few reasons. I'm working on a tool to help match files up and may be able to sort out GPS information as well. Watch this space.
I'd need to check the .tif file, but it's quite possible it does have the information you need, though not in the right format. Drop me a message with any info you have on the format you want it to be in for IR processing software and I'll see if I can help.
On the whole, the hardware for the Typhoon as a platform does capture and manage most of the data needed for professional jobs - however, Yuneec themselves haven't yet provided all of the tools you'd need to access that data. It's not surprising - they'd need an enormous team to cover all the possible use cases. It's exactly for that reason that all of the main drone companies provide SDKs so that companies like mine can develop specialist tools. Yuneec plan to release their SDK in the coming months and hopefully that will open up a lot of interesting features. In the short term, it's possible to reverse engineer a lot of the platforms functionality and some shortcomings can be relatively easily overcome.
In the case of the CGO-ET, the camera is produced by the same company that produces high end thermal cameras so I've no doubt the hardware should be capable of providing the information you need. The question is whether it requires an appropriate tool (which a third party would be able to write) or a firmware change (which would need Yuneec themselves to develop).
Thank you so much for this info. It's so topical as to tasks, elements, needed to configure in flight, post flight and data analysis. I am of the opinion that Yuneec has to tweak something in the firmware to iron out these issues.
Meanwhile we operate one day at a time attempting to decipher why we purchased the unit. Yuneec has to be monitoring the forum, and if we all contribute, they should respond.
Meanwhile we operate one day at a time attempting to decipher why we purchased the unit. Yuneec has to be monitoring the forum, and if we all contribute, they should respond.
PatR
Premium Pilot
Bottom line, if you cannot PID what you are looking at you might as well stay on the ground.
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Tuna it won't let me upload a tif file to the media library to share, restricted extension. I have to say, took it out today for a trial run and have to say, the 3 file output is nothing short of useless. Not sure what benefit this is but I will be on to Yuneec in the morning as for the money it provides no usable output
I hope I don't create more confusion. The CGO-ET is a specialized camera designed for real-time viewing on the ST16 screen.
Here is a useful explanation, thanks to Uwe Loewer.
Here is a useful explanation, thanks to Uwe Loewer.
