H520 3D Mapping Capabilities

kkenge · Oct 31, 2019

Hi All,

I am looking for some information on the 3D mapping capabilities of the H520. I know its design was for terrain mapping and construction site style of mapping... But I work in agriculture and I am curious if the capabilities are precise enough to reference the height of crops in the field and things of that nature. I know its not as effective as Lidar for this sort of application but I am curious if it would be sufficient.

Thank you to any information that you can provide regarding this topic.

chascoadmin · Nov 29, 2019

I have been construction and survey mapping with the H520 for 2 years and it is completely capable of 3D mapping, but in my experience agriculture users are doing quite a few things that it may not be best suited for. They do have a very good thermal camera, but not a true multi-spectral solution. There is another thread on this forum where users have retrofitted a multispectral system, but it is not available from the factory.

Pawel_(PL) · Nov 29, 2019

Indeed, multispectral capabilities is wha h520 lacks. And this is a shame. Although we have kits to mount Parrot Sequoia or Micasense RedEdge on h520 it is still missing plug&play abilities and a workfow is a bit hectic. Yet it is still better than nothing but surely would prefer Yuneec offered full integration of h520&DataPilot and SQ.

chascoadmin · Nov 29, 2019

Paw said:
Indeed, multispectral capabilities is wha h520 lacks. And this is a shame. Although we have kits to mount Parrot Sequoia or Micasense RedEdge on h520 it is still missing plug&play abilities and a workfow is a bit hectic. Yet it is still better than nothing but surely would prefer Yuneec offered full integration of h520&DataPilot and SQ.

Is it DataPilot or the QGroundControl base that is the culprit? If the base code is capable then maybe running Pix4D Capture or SiteScan would allow more of a plug-and-play option?

arruntus · Nov 29, 2019

I think it refers to the fact that the images are already georeferenced directly from the camera. In the end, systems like DJI have that, integration. To take the images directly and to be able to process them without worrying about anything else, and if we go beyond, even to forget about the GCP's, thing that in the systems totally integrated with a good GCP in the RTK base, does that they are not necessary.

chascoadmin · Nov 29, 2019

arruntus said:
I think it refers to the fact that the images are already georeferenced directly from the camera. In the end, systems like DJI have that, integration. To take the images directly and to be able to process them without worrying about anything else, and if we go beyond, even to forget about the GCP's, thing that in the systems totally integrated with a good GCP in the RTK base, does that they are not necessary.

Interesting, what was this in response to? I was curious as to what we think the reason is that Yuneec is not directly supporting multispectral. GCP's, PPK and RTK are completely different things.

Pawel_(PL) · Nov 29, 2019

H520 does not indeed support multispectral cameras as yet. Flying cameras like SQ and RE is surely possible but h520 is a carrier here and nothing more. In order to plan a mission a pilot needs to use Yuneec Datapilot or Pix4d capture to make drone to fly the camera (SQ/RE) abave terrain in question. But it will not make SQ/RE to trigger and make captures. So a 2nd step prior to launch is to make a wifi connection with SQ/RE and a tablet/smartfon in order to set the camera to take pictures (time laps, GPS). Finally there is a need to make a radiometric calibration. Only after all these steps the set (h520+camera) can be launched by sliding launch in the Datapilot.

I hope I have showed in a descriptive way what I meant saying that h520 misses full integration (cf: eMotion by senseFly and ebee where all the planning is in one place and SQ triggering is governed by emotion).

Regards,
Pawel

Pawel_(PL) · Nov 29, 2019

chascoadmin said:
Interesting, what was this in response to? I was curious as to what we think the reason is that Yuneec is not directly supporting multispectral. GCP's, PPK and RTK are completely different things.

Good point.
Yuneec pls. tell us why? Or even better what are your plans and timing should you consider to launch h520 multispectral. Competitors, one by one, are ahead...

arruntus · Nov 29, 2019

In this case a multispectral camera but the same can be applied to the RTK and the georeferencing of the images. In an integrated system nothing more needs to be done than to let the RTK base take a good position (or give it a known point) and fly the drone. In my case I have the RTK in a drone (made by me, I don't have anything integrated), and I have to configure everything. First the RTK base, link with the Rober, fly and take out the images and the positioning file of when you have taken each picture. Once I have the images I have to geotag them with a different software (based on time and position) and thus have the images already georeferenced correctly. In an integrated system all these steps disappear.

With the multispectral (Sequoia in my case) you have to do all the steps described by Paw, and if you want a good georeferencing (in this area is usually not very necessary because accuracy is not so important) do the steps I described above. This supposes in the end a lot of time of work that in an integrated system it is not necessary to do.