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New user help required - survey settings.

Edb

Joined
Apr 19, 2018
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We have just purchased a H520 with E90 camera. We will mostly be using this for survey missions and creating 3D models in Pix4D. Most sites we fly are quarries, and landfill sites, so large open areas. I have lots of fixed wing experience but this is the first multi copter I have flown so this is opening up a whole lot of new opportunities.

First impressions are that it is a great flying platform and very easy to control so we are really happy with that.

However the images that we have captured in our trials are very washed out and appear like a winters day - blue / grey. We can improve the orthomosaic image in Photoshop to make the colours more vibrant and realistic. But I don't really want to this for every project as we are limited on file size and the geotag information can be lost.

What camera settings do people recommend for surveys?
What speed are people flying survey missions at? We have tried 5m/s and 10m/s and both provide crisp images so hopefully we can stick with 10m/s?
Can anybody confirm the fail safes? I've read plenty of horror stories about low battery warnings, but is that still the case on the latest version of DataPilot 1.3? Whats the time for a lost link between the ST16 and H520 before it returns home?

Thanks for any pointers. Ive asked Yuneec for help but maybe this forum will react quicker? We will do more testing tomorrow.

Ed
 
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@Edb
Welcome to the forum, At the top right of each page is a magnifying glass or FORUM search function. (Not a Google search)
If you search on H520 camera settings you will have some reading to do.
Just based on what you have posted, sounds like a white balance setting. We have many qualified H520 pilots/photographers on here so I am sure they will chime in.
Can you upload a picture so we can have an example of the issue you are experiencing?
 
We have just purchased a H520 with E90 camera. We will mostly be using this for survey missions and creating 3D models in Pix4D. Most sites we fly are quarries, and landfill sites, so large open areas. I have lots of fixed wing experience but this is the first multi copter I have flown so this is opening up a whole lot of new opportunities.

First impressions are that it is a great flying platform and very easy to control so we are really happy with that.

However the images that we have captured in our trials are very washed out and appear like a winters day - blue / grey. We can improve the orthomosaic image in Photoshop to make the colours more vibrant and realistic. But I don't really want to this for every project as we are limited on file size and the geotag information can be lost.

What camera settings do people recommend for surveys?
What speed are people flying survey missions at? We have tried 5m/s and 10m/s and both provide crisp images so hopefully we can stick with 10m/s?
Can anybody confirm the fail safes? I've read plenty of horror stories about low battery warnings, but is that still the case on the latest version of DataPilot 1.3? Whats the time for a lost link between the ST16 and H520 before it returns home?

Thanks for any pointers. Ive asked Yuneec for help but maybe this forum will react quicker? We will do more testing tomorrow.

Ed

I think it's the color profile. By default images are captured in raw. That may be the reason.

I recommend you read the manual, as with any electronic device ;)

You have a lot of procedures in the header of this forum.

Basic procedures with the H520 and cameras
 
I have now added 2 photos to the aerial photos album. Both photos were taken of the same subject in similar light conditions. The first photo has been captured from the H520 in survey mode with the E90 camera. The exposure bias has been set to -0.5 and all other modes automatic
yun200-40-e90-low.762
. The second photo is taken from our fixed wing with the Sony QX1 camera
sony-qx1-low.763
. The Sony produces much better colour contrast which is a closer reality. . I have read all the manuals and believe we have set up the camera correctly. We love the H520 but we need to improve the photos, so any pointers gratefully received. Many thanks.
 

Attachments

  • yun200 (40) E90 low.jpg
    yun200 (40) E90 low.jpg
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  • Sony QX1 low.JPG
    Sony QX1 low.JPG
    1.2 MB · Views: 16
I have now added 2 photos to the aerial photos album. Both photos were taken of the same subject in similar light conditions. The first photo has been captured from the H520 in survey mode with the E90 camera. The exposure bias has been set to -0.5 and all other modes automatic
yun200-40-e90-low.762
. The second photo is taken from our fixed wing with the Sony QX1 camera
sony-qx1-low.763
. The Sony produces much better colour contrast which is a closer reality. . I have read all the manuals and believe we have set up the camera correctly. We love the H520 but we need to improve the photos, so any pointers gratefully received. Many thanks.

I don't know, I still think it's the color profile. You have several profiles and you can choose the one you like best. I like to use the uncompressed profile and then I give it color in postproduction. To process the images is not going to give you any problem. Then you can apply a color profile only to the final result, to an orthophoto for example. That's the way I do it at least. Try the different profiles you have available, take a picture of the same site without moving through each of the profiles and then choose the one you like best.
 
Thanks for the input. I do not like the idea of adjusting the colour post production. We are looking to incorporate the photos from the H520 with our fixed wing photos. So any significant difference in the images will not help the processing in Pix4D. We would have to adjust each image before bringing into Pix4D, if you do that then you lose the exif and geotag information, so that is not an option.

We have tried different colour profiles using both the unprocessed and vivid and still get washed out images. If there is not a fix then we may need to send it back. Maybe there is a fault with the camera?
 
You may have problems introducing photos from different cameras in Pix4D (unless it has a specific option for that?) as the lens parameters will be different, which will break the reconstruction. There are a number of batch processing options which should not remove the EXIF and Geo information (Try out Paint Shop Pro for instance) and can be set up to run on large numbers of images automatically.

The first thing to do is to try out all the camera modes during manual flight, so you can see the effects of the various settings and get images closer to the QX1 output. Then you can figure out if survey mode is overriding those settings. Obviously you can also adjust the QX1 as well so the cameras are producing similar results. If the QX1 is doing a lot of in-camera processing (ie. applying a colour profile, photo mode or things like contrast and sharpness adjustments) you are going to have problems matching it as the results will be very dependent on the QX1 firmware - which the E90 obviously will not have.

The best results in ortho software tend to come from images that have a 'flat' profile (as this preserves the maximum amount of information for processing). You can then adjust the contrast and curves of the output files to suit your particular presentation needs.
 
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