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Geo-tagging videos and photographs

Thanks for the valuable input. One other consideration that you initially made about uploading large images and large numbers of images, and the time this requires.

How does this compare with processing time in pix4d? I know when I use VisualSFM, Meshlab and sketchUp, I can produce similar deliverables, but each application can tie my machine up for hours.

Thanks again for the help
 
We have similar experiences - processing locally IS a huge time commitment and I plan carefully to run jobs over-night, and get annoyed when some small failure halts an entire job. Pix4D has failed on me several times, when a single image out of 200 has 'something' wrong with it and the software doesnt appear to know how to ignore it and move on... this failure is unusual, but not rare, and the image failure has never been figured out... its just identified as one of 200 images... and I remove it, and the procedure moves ahead and produces a successful composite map. Now, as often as not, I set aside a second and third notebook dedicated to just this Pix4D processing - it always pays off, and those computers run stripped down OS and minimal apps so as little bothers them as possible.
Every time I have used MME (maps made easy) IF i have the high speed Internet connection available (80% of time) then the upload is easy, and pushing the processing burden off to the service is welcome...
I did however, make the mistake of doing this once while still in the field... using a mobile hotspot... and paid the price (literally) for 100 GB upload... arg... free at home, $$$$ when in field.
Your comment has made me curious... and I have bring up MME this morning and am running my test set of images through it side-by-side against Pix4D Mapper... I cant compare the processing time in any fair way, but the quality of the final map should be a reasonable thing to score. Will let you know.

DocV
 
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I just bought my Typhoon 4K and was under the impression I could do some mapping with it while using drone deploy. Well I have come to realize I can not. I am currently uploading some pictures to maps made easy for the stitched aerial imagery to see how that turns out. I really need to figure out a way to map with this guy. Is there anyway to do this? Please help!!!!
 
I just have the 4K though not the Typhoon H. Is there anyway to geotag my pictures? Or will Yuneec come out with software soon to do so?
 
I just bought my Typhoon 4K and was under the impression I could do some mapping with it while using drone deploy. Well I have come to realize I can not. I am currently uploading some pictures to maps made easy for the stitched aerial imagery to see how that turns out. I really need to figure out a way to map with this guy. Is there anyway to do this? Please help!!!!
Collin,

I have a small fleet of 6 Typhoons, some Q500's, some 500+s and some G's... all have the same limitation in that they dont geo-tag stills taken. What they DO have, is the ability to record flight data if you install a microSD card on the ST10 flight controller. Do this first. I have 4 GB cards in mine, that is enough to store flight data for a LOT of flying. You dont have to do anything to turn this recording feature in, the ST10 recognizes the presence of the microSD card (formatted FAT32) and begin storing flight data there as soon as the ST10 is properly powered up. I am finding that 3 sets of .csv files are recorded, and they all open up in MS Excel quite nicely and cleanly.

The DateTime format used by the ST10 is not a popular standard so I have put together an Excel spreadsheet I will share that has the formulas in it to 1) convert the Yuneec DateTime to a more common Excel format and one popular with other applications, and 2) convert altitudes from how they are recorded to what my mapping software uses. I have done this a dozen times now, but still consider this a testing phase because I want this to dump into several different mapping applications and services. When the Excel spreadsheet is done, it produces new columns that are directly readable by the next piece of this workflow - to create a 'synthetic' .gpx file - what Yuneec should have been recording all along. At least they do record flight data at about 3 Hz on the controller and about 5 Hz on the aircraft. If this works with the Typhoons... it should work with the H as well (my small company has one on order, but we have accomplished SO much with the original Typhoons we havent needed to purchase the new one at entry pricing).

Go get this first step done on your controller... and Ill work on finishing up my write up... but so far, I have extracted flight logs from all of my Typhoons... and ended up with successful composite maps from Pix4D Mapper, from MapsMadeEasy.com, and soon, from Propeller too.

The work flow is - collect the ST10 flight data, correct the format of the DateTime column and convert altitude (units) as needed..
Then use this .csv file and one of three different applications to generate a synthetic .gpx GPS file...
Then use another application to time sync the stills to the flight log, extract the GPS data and geo-tag the individual images to make them ready for mapping.

It sounds like a lot of work, but its really batch processing and takes only minutes per project... I 'have' found a few completely unexplainable bugs... images that for no apparent reason get geo-tagged Lat = 0, Lon = 0 when 150 other images taken in the same mission get tagged correctly... no clue as to why [yet]... but easily gotten around...

More later.


DocV
North American Robotics
 
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Collin,

I have a small fleet of 6 Typhoons, some Q500's, some 500+s and some G's... all have the same limitation in that they dont geo-tag stills taken. What they DO have, is the ability to record flight data if you install a microSD card on the ST10 flight controller. Do this first. I have 4 GB cards in mine, that is enough to store flight data for a LOT of flying. You dont have to do anything to turn this recording feature in, the ST10 recognizes the presence of the microSD card (formatted FAT32) and begin storing flight data there as soon as the ST10 is properly powered up. I am finding that 3 sets of .csv files are recorded, and they all open up in MS Excel quite nicely and cleanly.

The DateTime format used by the ST10 is not a popular standard so I have put together an Excel spreadsheet I will share that has the formulas in it to 1) convert the Yuneec DateTime to a more common Excel format and one popular with other applications, and 2) convert altitudes from how they are recorded to what my mapping software uses. I have done this a dozen times now, but still consider this a testing phase because I want this to dump into several different mapping applications and services. When the Excel spreadsheet is done, it produces new columns that are directly readable by the next piece of this workflow - to create a 'synthetic' .gpx file - what Yuneec should have been recording all along. At least they do record flight data at about 3 Hz on the controller and about 5 Hz on the aircraft. If this works with the Typhoons... it should work with the H as well (my small company has one on order, but we have accomplished SO much with the original Typhoons we havent needed to purchase the new one at entry pricing).

Go get this first step done on your controller... and Ill work on finishing up my write up... but so far, I have extracted flight logs from all of my Typhoons... and ended up with successful composite maps from Pix4D Mapper, from MapsMadeEasy.com, and soon, from Propeller too.

The work flow is - collect the ST10 flight data, correct the format of the DateTime column and convert altitude (units) as needed..
Then use this .csv file and one of three different applications to generate a synthetic .gpx GPS file...
Then use another application to time sync the stills to the flight log, extract the GPS data and geo-tag the individual images to make them ready for mapping.

It sounds like a lot of work, but its really batch processing and takes only minutes per project... I 'have' found a few completely unexplainable bugs... images that for no apparent reason get geo-tagged Lat = 0, Lon = 0 when 150 other images taken in the same mission get tagged correctly... no clue as to why [yet]... but easily gotten around...

More later.


DocV
North American Robotics

Wow that is awesome! I have a 4GB micro SD in the back of my ST10 as well and opened up the excel sheets in there, but couldn't figure out what to do from there. When you can and have everything situated please share. I do not want to invest in a DJI haha. Thanks Doc
 
Collin.... upload your Telemetry and RemoteGPS .csv files... I want to see what is recorded.... I will add in the formulas I use to get these csv files suitable for creating a synthetic GPX file... ok?

or email me directly... [email protected]

DocV

we will get this all resolved working together.
 
Doc,

I was wondering if you had a chance yet to do the write up on your workflow?

I'm pretty handy with Ruby so I'm confident I can do the steps you already outlined to geotag the images.

However, I can't quite seem to wrap my head around how to fly the mapping mission with a Q500 without any automation. Seems like hand flying and manual photo capture will decrease reliability of getting proper overlap and altitude.

Any recommendations?

Thanks!
 
Hey Bronco
Fly 350 to 400 feet in a lawn mower pattern , try to overlap 60 to 70% and take a pic about every 4 or 5 seconds with average speed(between rabbit and turtle). Overshoot your project. After a few of these you won't be looking at your controller as much. I shoot RAW in case of sudden cloud cover, I can correct in PS or Lightroom. I get better consistency among photos if I use manual setting and lock in white balance and exposure. Photo shop will stitch photos together automatically but I,m also waiting for Doc's info to get better at all this. I have stitched as many as 85 images together.....it takes about 20 min or so.
Ed
 
Hey Bronco
Fly 350 to 400 feet in a lawn mower pattern , try to overlap 60 to 70% and take a pic about every 4 or 5 seconds with average speed(between rabbit and turtle). Overshoot your project. After a few of these you won't be looking at your controller as much. I shoot RAW in case of sudden cloud cover, I can correct in PS or Lightroom. I get better consistency among photos if I use manual setting and lock in white balance and exposure. Photo shop will stitch photos together automatically but I,m also waiting for Doc's info to get better at all this. I have stitched as many as 85 images together.....it takes about 20 min or so.
Ed
I've been needing this @Eddy Spagetti , Thanks. At least I have a starting point.
 
@Eddie Spagetti thanks for the tips!

Your solution definitely seems like a workable one but I just can't imagine hitting the capture button 85 times. So I got to thinking more about this problem...

Why not capture video of the area you want to map in 4K. Then using ffmpeg you could extract stills from the video adding in timestamps. Then reference them to the telemetry data on the ST10 as DocV recommended in his workflow.

I'm not sure if anyone has worked on this at all yet so if someone wants to chime in feel free!

I'm going to do some captures this weekend and see what I can come up with.
 
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Bronco
I have done that .... you either pull images OR hit the button. But I believe Doc's method allows both.
 
@Eddie Spagetti thanks for the tips!

Your solution definitely seems like a workable one but I just can't imagine hitting the capture button 85 times. So I got to thinking more about this problem...

Why not capture video of the area you want to map in 4K. Then using ffmpeg you could extract stills from the video adding in timestamps. Then reference them to the telemetry data on the ST10 as DocV recommended in his workflow.

I'm not sure if anyone has worked on this at all yet so if someone wants to chime in feel free!

I'm going to do some captures this weekend and see what I can come up with.
I did that and it works fine, if I understand (and I probably don't) this is the drawback.

Our camera takes pic at 16MP and the best resolution you can achieve from extracting stills from 4k video is around 8 MP
 
Yes...........that is the drawback. But check the res on the stills. Are you sure it's 16 MP. For some reason I thought it was 12.
 

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