Is This Possible For Us H Owners? A forum member said he used PIX4D & Agisoft to do 3D & Mapping.

Tom C · Nov 11, 2016

Hi everyone after I read a post from another forum member saying that he has actually physically used both Pix4D & Agisoft with the Typhoon H, It has put me on a mad race of trying to find out as much information as I possibly can about using the H for Mapping, Being able to re-make buildings & other things into 3D renditions of them, doing any elevation change charting, Crop inspection for blight or other plant diseases along with any other possible thing that we may be able to do with our Typhoon H without having to spend over $150 in addition to the H ie without having to purchase modular items such as the "FLIR Camera" etc.

I'd like for as many people to participate by giving any additional information possible that relate to things our H's are capable of or can do with relatively few improvements or modifications to our current equipment & without spending more than $150 if spending anything at all, to achieve whichever task/challenge/pre-planned missions etc. I also have known about a really nice app/software that was designed by a member of this forum (Which I apologize but I don't remember at the moment) Feersum Flight Center - Yuneec ST-16 . Which is awesome because after you install it onto your ST16 it allows you after you fly & make some new telemetry files to open them up right on your ST16 & as you watch & review the video that was recorded from your last flight you can at the exact same time watch it as a pointer on a map as if looking down from space & then if you simply connect to google maps after you have some saved files you can download their maps to use offline and this app outputs GPX files along with the other files.

Take a quick look at this app/software because I'm just curious as to how hard it may be for us to implement using our H? In the past I've read a post that a Professional retired airforce pilot wrote explaining why our H's aren't capable of doing mapping because they lack the ability to be able to communicate the Heading they are on ie as in direction that it is facing or traveling communicated as degrees from 0-360 but if you just review the app that I told you about above "FeerSum Flight Center" you'll be able to see that it allows you to review your flight & while doing that it shows exactly what Heading the H is on & so I don't see how hard it would be for Yuneec to come out with a firmware update that will allow the ST16 to display the Heading of the H. Here is a brief preview of the basic capabilities the "Birds Eye View App" is capable of and this one shows the mapping and how its done . After reviewing the above videos if you want to know more here is the sites URL BirdsEyeView Aerobotics - Welcome to the Revolution .
I truly appreciate anyone that can provide all of us with any beneficial information, & if any of you possibly know how to program/make/design an app to be used on our ST16's then please let us all know because I'm sure that if anyone would be able to make any kind of app for our H's than I along with many others wouldn't find any issue with donating towards those efforts.. Thanks Tom C

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

Hi Tom c, that was my post you read, and yes you can use agisoft and pix4d to create 3D models, orthomosaics, DEMs etc.
By using either Eric's Ccc editor or tunas flight centre app you can pre program missions before hand to fly the routes.
The main thing you need to be aware of if you want accurate models is that Jpeg record their altitude as below seas level so this will need to be corrected before making any model, or dem.
If you want to see what can be created I can pm you my website which I have put up for a two week test.
You can so get pix4d for a 15 day trial with your email address and it will give you the pro version with all the features.

Cheers
Graeme

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

I will also add the the time lapse feature is now ideal for this type of activity, pre program a mission, set up time lapse and away you go [emoji23][emoji106]

Mickeyboo · Nov 12, 2016

That combination although it can be done via trial and error unfortunately lacks the precision for building 3-d topographic maps, supposedly in January Yuneec in conjunction with developers will be improving upon what we're currently limited to by working more closely with third party developers. What's needed is something which factors in your lens field of view and calculates how many shots are needed for the mission you've drawn so that you have proper overlap...the best lens for the job currently since it has little or no distortion would be the one which Peau distributes the 8.2mm. DJI drones have had an app (name escapes me at the moment) for over a year via a third party app. One of the missing links for Yuneec in general is fostering third party app development but first quarter of next year that is going to improve. A friend of mine who does these maps professionally likes the Yuneec H very much but hasn't bought one because of the current limitations mentioned above.

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

Mickeyboo said:
That combination although it can be done via trial and error unfortunately lacks the precision for building 3-d topographic maps, supposedly in January Yuneec in conjunction with developers will be improving upon what we're currently limited to by working more closely with third party developers. What's needed is something which factors in your lens field of view and calculates how many shots are needed for the mission you've drawn so that you have proper overlap...the best lens for the job currently since it has little or no distortion would be the one which Peau distributes the 8.2mm. DJI drones have had an app (name escapes me at the moment) for over a year now via a third party app. One of the missing links for Yuneec in general is fostering third party app development but this is supposed to be coming soon.

That would be a definite bonus, however all of the lens factors can be put into agisoft and pix4d manually the only, the only real factor is the NON tks GPS, so yuneec working with 3rd party app will no increase our accuracy only the use of gcp (ground control points) and tks GPS will resolve that.
We can actually use gcp at the moment which helps as well.
As for the overlap you can set both programs to check all pictures before aligning cameras (pictures) to ensure best overlap I do this as standard, I have filtering set to aggressive

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

Here is a link to a model I put on sketch fab its only done at medium quality but you get the idea,

https://skfb.ly/VssY

JulesTEO · Nov 12, 2016

Yes, it is possible to use the H with both pix4D and Agisoft. As Graeme mentioned the altitude on .jpg is stored with a negative value for some reason while .dng does store it correctly.

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

JulesTEO said:
Yes, it is possible to use the H with both pix4D and Agisoft. As Graeme mentioned the altitude on .jpg is stored with a negative value for some reason while .dng does store it correctly.

Yeah, so I'm hoping we can use dng as time. Lapse on a future update or the jpeg issue is sorted, I also saw the same jpeg issue on a dji forum some time back not sure if they had it sorted?

JulesTEO · Nov 12, 2016

Graeme Buckley said:
Yeah, so I'm hoping we can use dng as time. Lapse on a future update or the jpeg issue is sorted, I also saw the same jpeg issue on a dji forum some time back not sure if they had it sorted?

The problem with dng is that it looks like it takes a bit more for the cgo3+ to save, and I've noticed that after taking several photos at close to 1sec interval the camera seems to struggle and cant keep up

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

JulesTEO said:
The problem with dng is that it looks like it takes a bit more for the cgo3+ to save, and I've noticed that after taking several photos at close to 1sec interval the camera seems to struggle and cant keep up

Yeah I've noticed the same, you get the little working circle, if the fix the jpeg issue that'd be grand, otherwise I just need to manually change them [emoji23][emoji106]

chiloschista · Nov 12, 2016

That's a 3D flight animation I did from a 3D modelisation grabbed with the TH.

Mickeyboo · Nov 12, 2016

Graham I was a beta tester for Pix 4D Mac Version and I also use Agisoft's program you're referring to calculations post flight I'm referring to calculations preflight which make the postflight more accurate. Preflight you merely draw vectors and the program does all the calculations for lens, how many photos etc. Not all lenses are listed...Pix 4D is about 4 thousand dollars do you think that people in this forum who complain about having to buy a faster Micro SD card are going to pay for that? I apologize if it came across as saying it could not be done it can be but the workflow and precision are not as fluid as when all of these calculations are done pre-flight...have you seen how it's done with DJI products? I'm heading out of town otherwise I would post some of the 3D topographic maps I've created. I'm pleased we're having this discussion and happy to see so many people on the forum trying this.

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

Yes m8, few of my friends etc all have dji products and it does seem to far easier for them, I actually liked drone deploy quite a lot, but definitely any improvements yuneec can do for us to bridge the gap would be a real bonus in my eyes [emoji106]

Tuna · Nov 12, 2016

Thanks for the mention of Flight Center. I'm very aware of the mapping community, and happy to work with people who have specific features they need for more accurate flights. There will be more features coming in Flight Center soon. Yuneec have said they wish to work more closely with third parties - we'll see how that translates into actions. The platform is excellent for development though, so I'm optimistic we can add some real value.

I appreciate that people don't want to spend loads of money on 'bells and whistles' for their drones. However, this sort of software takes quite an investment of time and testing. Something like Flight Center costs well into five figures to develop and if you want to see more, you have to be willing to spend a little on your tools. Particularly if you want a platform that can be used commercially and professionally, you have to commit to paying for third party stuff - just as you'd pay for extra batteries, lights, cases and so on. This isn't a call for money or charity - at the moment I'm not charging for Flight Center, but a handful of people offering donations really doesn't begin to pay for the work that goes into developing solid, reliable tools.

@Mickeyboo At some point we can chat about what you would need to get robust mapping out of the H. Flight Center now includes camera estimation, and as soon as I've been able to do some deeper testing with the new firmware, I hope to bring some new features out to take advantage of it.

Graeme Buckley · Nov 12, 2016

Tuna said:
Thanks for the mention of Flight Center. I'm very aware of the mapping community, and happy to work with people who have specific features they need for more accurate flights. There will be more features coming in Flight Center soon. Yuneec have said they wish to work more closely with third parties - we'll see how that translates into actions. The platform is excellent for development though, so I'm optimistic we can add some real value.

I appreciate that people don't want to spend loads of money on 'bells and whistles' for their drones. However, this sort of software takes quite an investment of time and testing. Something like Flight Center costs well into five figures to develop and if you want to see more, you have to be willing to spend a little on your tools. Particularly if you want a platform that can be used commercially and professionally, you have to commit to paying for third party stuff - just as you'd pay for extra batteries, lights, cases and so on. This isn't a call for money or charity - at the moment I'm not charging for Flight Center, but a handful of people offering donations really doesn't begin to pay for the work that goes into developing solid, reliable tools.

@Mickeyboo At some point we can chat about what you would need to get robust mapping out of the H. Flight Center now includes camera estimation, and as soon as I've been able to do some deeper testing with the new firmware, I hope to bring some new features out to take advantage of it.

Excellent good stuff tuna, I agree the mapping stuff is pretty expensive. At the moment people I have worked with for Mapping have been happy to accept the accuracy it has produced (I believe that it's 10m) however anyway this can be improved is a huge bonus to us, I have paid for the full version of agisoft however I don't think it's anywhere near perfect for drones, so if in future releases flight centre the. Flight centre app is. Maybe geared more towards that you may very well have the one stop. Shop for the typhoon H mapping and mission programming.
As these are professional services they should be charged to any clients as such and subsequently the price for the program would hold a good. Competitive price [emoji106]

chiloschista · Nov 12, 2016

Graeme Buckley said:
As these are professional services they should be charged to any clients as such and subsequently the price for the program would hold a good. Competitive price [emoji106]

Please remember there are people doing works which are usually not payed. That's probably the reason there are not a lot of pilots wanting to do search & rescue, environmental surveys, remote countries mapping etc
Usually those guys buy expensive tools at their expenses and get nothing in return ...

Mijeau · Jan 2, 2017

chiloschista said:
That's a 3D flight animation I did from a 3D modelisation grabbed with the TH.

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Hi there !
Happy new year ......yr castle video is great.
Can you advise what s/w you used to configure yr TH flight path, how you controlled the shooting of multiple images & which app you used to generate the final model rendering pls?
Cheers, Mike