Multi-Rotor Thread

[igeighty]

That is Mary's new car.. the Xtrail retired and needed more money to repair than it was worth.

It is a VF Sportwagon. (SV6) same colour as the Xtrail and very comfy. We went for a quick run down to Tooradin and had a drone fly but when a fish eagle appeared, we quickly realised not a good idea to fly there

[mik333]

43 minutes ago, igeighty said:

That is Mary's new car.. the Xtrail retired and needed more money to repair than it was worth.

It is a VF Sportwagon. (SV6) same colour as the Xtrail and very comfy. We went for a quick run down to Tooradin and had a drone fly but when a fish eagle appeared, we quickly realised not a good idea to fly there

Worried about a bird poop on the wagon??

[igeighty]

Haha, no. The eagle took a very keen interest in the drones. And after seeing the videos on the DJI forums about birds snatching your new toys, thought it prudent to pull the pin. The seagulls got very territorial also when I flew by them.

[igeighty]

I thought I would share my thoughts of Active Track, a feature of the DJI drones, via the GO4 app.

On the weekend at the Dean festival, I flew my mavic with focus on the kites, or people, or myself and tested how it avoided and dealt with tracking. The tracking was excellent. rather than tap on an object, in screen I would Draw a box around a particular thing, person or kite. with the drone sitting at a fixed distance from the object while you have control of the positioning of the drone. So you don't need to focus so much on the orientation of the camera, it also smooths out movements.

My next test will be to get it out on the open beaches like sandy point or shallow inlet. and have it track a buggy rider and kite. a few extra batteries and I will be set. it is simple enough for anyone to control it after a couple of pointers, and where is the pause button. 

Then I have to think about how to charge it all up from a 12v camper setup for Kingston. I reckon I may have to rent some of chooks power. 

When I first bought the drone, I wanted a few things from it. Autonomy and hands off flying, with the view to have it track the buggy or kite just beyond line length. for filming it would hopefully replace the Gopro's that we don't use.

Video from the mavic is excellent if you set it up right. now that will mean different things to different people. I am now filming in D-Log 4k 24 fps. the D-log is like RAW to single shots, D-log retains all color information for editing later.

I looked at the original D-log footage, and while super crisp it was very dull and almost greyscale. it wasn't after the 75th flight that I realised I had to color grade the D-log files so as to bring out all the extra information, 

Here are two shots before and after adjusting color.

original D-log as the mavic sees it -----------------^

Color Graded in Final Cut-------v

 

These are screen shots, before and after of the color grade in Final Cut. I didn't think I would have to learn this  But through stubbornness and persistence, I learned how to use Apple Final cut pro X, and once I got my head around it, it is a fairly straightforward process.

FCPX has excellent color adjustments and the ability to save them as presets for later use. Presets that you can call on later to match colours between different scenes in a video .Drone camera shots have different light values depending on different angles to the sun. this makes matching the colours for the same kite from different angles difficult, You have to try your best in post production that one shot isn't blown out by the sun whilst the same shot from the opposite angle is too dark while filming with the same settings.

This is where the presets come in. you can correct the light values to try and get an average with color wheels in FCPX. Post processing is time consuming though. And having so much raw footage is pretty overwhelming. Five batteries give me about an hour and 20 minutes recording time. and its all in 4K. I have an older MacBook and it handles the files no problem at all. with no lag. I am staggered at the amount of data that is being recorded and transmitted, this hardware just works. DJI and Mac with iPad as the drone screen. everything is pretty seamless. 

Software is the other side of it. There are quite a few different way to control the machine. DJI has its own GO4 app. Autopilot by hangar ? has an excellent Follow me Mode, Both Autoplitot and Litchi have excellent waypoint mission pre planning, I like the idea of planning the same flight over and over. and seeing what settings do what.

Litchi : https://flylitchi.com

Autopilot (iOS):http://autoflight.hangar.com/#modes

Rob, are you using litchi to control yours ? some really good features there for programmed flights.. I Fired up autopilot (inside) and I thought I had been through every setting. I hit 'Go' and it took off as normal, hovered about 1.2m above the floor. I figured it would just hover, but my waypoint was set to 30m altitude,.....  It stuck to the roof, and grinded four 'tit' shapes in my plaster ceiling. I jumped up to grab it as it grinded its way towards the ceiling fan. I managed to grab it just before the ceiling fan blades got me.  SO.. I have been a bit cautious of both litchi and hangar  but... they do look amazing. if operated correctly lol.. Mez laughed,

Rob or anyone got any drone tips ?? 

Anyway, I knew having a drone would be fun. its @roblukin's fault. He said I had to learn it for when I see him next, and he could quiz me. it is he, who shall be quizzed.

 Indeed it has been quite hard work to learn a lot of different things to get colours and shots. I have the flying and control down, now I have to get all the camera settings right.

 

Here is the color graded file of Dean with the mavic.. It is 5 minutes of 100 minutes of footage, with nearly all the bad bits cut out.

ISO100, 24fps 1/60 shutter. I am using ND filters from ND4-ND16 depending on the light on the day.

I use these camera settings in most light, the just apply an ND filter to suit.

 

please share your experiences wit these toys or software .

 

cya.

[bakersdozen]

Where'd you get them water cut? Expensive?

[igeighty]

7 minutes ago, bakersdozen said:

Where'd you get them water cut? Expensive?

Gday Buddy..

https://www.mrcwaterjetcutting.com.au a place in bayswater. the total cut cost $50 and that was 4 cuts, as each case uses 2 layers of foam. (they cut anything too)

foam was from reservoir timbre and hardware store. the only stockists of 'kaizen' foam I could find https://www.timbecon.com.au/site-shop-accessories/kaizen-foam-organizer $44 for a 57mm sheet, and about $30 for a 30mm sheet. used felt in the bottom. a sheet of foam was 2ft x 4 ft (imperial measurements)

great for anything you'd need a hard case for.

 

[bakersdozen]

Nice work dude! That's fairly cost effective, was thinking it'd be heaps more than that. 

Have a look into where you can download some LUTs for FCPX . You can get some corkers for converting dlog into say rec709 colorspace and then apply grading luts from there or just use the curve wheels. This will help match different scenes as you mentioned above. 

[roblukin]

hey doug, im pretty comfortable with flying the drone, i mainly use Litchi, i love its waypoint missions and the fact that you can plan it all at home before you go out to fly, as for the active tracking, i havnt had much success with that yet. im using a samsung phone as my display, im thinking its not powerful enough and that may be half my trouble. Your all over the editing compared to me. i think itl be me picking your brains, not the other way round. When we get together we'll combine forces and work it out.

[SoutherlyBuster]

I assume the out of focus grass at the edges of the picture was YouTube compessing the hell out of your original?

Curious about correct color grading of before and after final cut messed with it. When I tried final cut with go pro footage and stills it ruined the colors and took sharpness out of the picture, appearing dull and this was not taken from footage requiring converting from raw — this was the reason I ditched Final Cut 10 and went with Adobe instead.

So perhaps next time you program the way points get the units right? 30 inches elevation rather than 30 meters?  

 

[igeighty]

On 05/09/2018 at 10:12 PM, bakersdozen said:

Nice work dude! That's fairly cost effective, was thinking it'd be heaps more than that.

--G;day Mark. I would be glad to design a shape file and get it cut for the spark for you.. The spark case I made for @Mez uses the shape for Spark portable charging station. but you could just create a spark profile shape in illustrator to replace the Large shape for the dock.. This water jet is just like an old plotter printer, it reads DXF files. I just made shapes that I measured using a ruler for all the bits and pieces that I wanted to fit into the case then arranged them in layout.

 

On 06/09/2018 at 2:12 PM, roblukin said:

When we get together we'll combine forces

Definitely Mr. We are heading to Kingston early this year I think, also mum and dad are coming with a campervan and hooked up a powered site, so they said we can all charge our batteries on their hookup but they won't be there till around the 14th. I have 7 Batteries and a car charger. I wonder how many cycles I can get from my solar hookup..

 

I have read and read all the literature for litchi and for autopilot. and will do a few long range flight tests this weekend if its not blowing its tits off. a sneaky trip to shallow inlet would be alright for a good no interference test, we have to test out the tracking a gps device option.

if that works. could be a good way to capture footage of yourself.. program a Return To Home at %50, program to follow your phone, hit go, and have it RTH at the beach tent.

 

On 07/09/2018 at 6:35 AM, SoutherlyBuster said:

I assume the out of focus grass at the edges of the picture was YouTube

I uploaded full 4k HD file to youtube, it took me ages. when it finished uploading overnight, the best it would display was 1080. I am not sure why there is no 4k version. However the focus issue could be just my eyesight and what 'I' think is in focus .

Mavic has an auto focus or a manual mode. in manual, you have to tap screen or adjust a slider, Its hard to gauge focus on an iPad mini.

 

I installed lightroom, and looked at color settings and the masks and had a quick play with one photo of a dam. it was a superb bright but not sunny day very grey sky and overcast.

 

[bakersdozen]

@igeighty Check your codec. YouTube is fussy. You may need to render it out to a YouTube friendly codec at 4k from your editing program.

Thanks for offer. Was thinking for other gear down the track, opens up great opportunities.

Spark will stay portable and compact packing as that's one of the greatest features. Grab and go, no worrying about a hard case.

[Cheezycheese]

@igeighty have you been able to follow buggies up and down the beach with your Mavic..? If so do the winds we fly in make it difficult...? I just picked up a second hand Mavic. Mavic 2 just released, so people are dumping these pretty cheap. Looking to bump up the buggy videos. Also picked up an Osmo really cheap 

[igeighty]

I haven't had the pleasure of filming a buggy just yet..

'Active Track' through the DJI app, has a habit of 'loosing' the subject it is tracking if you actively try to dodged it, IE running in one direction and quickly changing tack. The drone overfly's and looses focus.. But while on the buggy if you do controlled slow downs and turns, it should follow you no worries.

I saw a video of a person on a scooter, and it seems to keep up with them pretty well.

 

I was sure one of the apps, either Litchi, or Autopilot featured a setting where it would track a GPS enabled device. like your phone. rather than relying on visual acquisition. but now for the life of me I can't find where that feature was. or even if I was on crack at the time/

 

Given the video above, I reckon though, it will have no issues on a wide open beach tracking a buggy. Just set the return to home point to your beach base and if it does go pear shaped, it will head home and land at the tent.

 

As for winds, I have had mavic out in 22 knot easterly at shallow inlet and it handled the breeze with no issues, but you generally have plenty of space on a beach for small movements due to wind pushing the drone and it making corrections. it tilted sideways to compensate for wind, but hardly budged from it poisition in the sky.

I flew from the inlet to yanakie, which is a fair hike. I flew into the wind at first, so I would have a tailwind if I had to get home quick. The flight logs show that while flying east into the wind, I had max speed of 42.8 kph but coming back peaked 64 kph with tailwind. I think that it will handle the speed of a buggy also in normal mode. Sport mode in the wide open spaces is the fastest you will fly, however active track and the likes aren't available in sport mode ? and the  camera gimbal is pretty sketchy at those speeds, As it fly's with the nose pointed right down, the camera has to tilt up, and you get rotors and sun strobes on your image. It is fun to fly in sport mode if you are just flying from shot to shot. I have setup the 

I think though that the mavic is very capable, and smart enough to RTH if it goes south through loss of transmission. I have tested its idiot proof features extensively  I flew it over the house and to a water tower, I set the RTH to 100m so it will clear all the trees and the hill, obstacle avoidance isn't to awesome when in RTH mode, it sees something and if it gets stuck trying to avoid it, it will just hover sometimes and get stuck. I flew it to the tower, and the down behind the hill about 1 klm away. after loss of RC signal, it started on its way home, and landed on the same '50' Traffic sign I use for a lander. So I am pretty keen on what it can do under RC signal loss situations.

Around my suburbs, range is fairly modest due to interference and loss of sight, although in the open beach space range was significantly increased. chasing a buggy shouldn't be a problem.

I hope you get out the beach soon, the days are getting warmer here in melbourne, and the days longer. so we are just coming into season.

 

 

[roblukin]

2 hours ago, igeighty said:

I was sure one of the apps, either Litchi, or Autopilot featured a setting where it would track a GPS enabled device. like your phone. rather than relying on visual acquisition. but now for the life of me I can't find where that feature was. or even if I was on crack at the time/

Litchi is supposed to do this, i think they call it a "Magic Leash" or something like that, i dont have it and havnt seen it used but ive read about it. You  could also take your controller on the buggy and the drone should follow that. 

[Cheezycheese]

Well, I wasn't planning on trying active track. I am too afraid someone out of my sight might ride by and slice their lines, or worse hit it with a kite unintentionally. Really wanted to sit in a tandem and try to fly/follow the pack as they move up and down the beach. I joined a FB mavic forum, but with all the wisecracks and banter it's hard to determine what is useful information. We have our buggy bash approaching in 3 weeks, so hopefully will get great winds and awesome footage ??

[igeighty]

Follow me mode,

is the mode I need to try, however it is a bit dicey to have to carry the remote onboard in order to be tracked. Maybe the GT, could have its one special drone box to hold your gear ") and while in this mode the mavic has a top speed of 10m/s or 36kph (22.3mph)

anyway, follow me mode is the one I was thinking about. I am yet to try it. and have watched a ton of youtube about it this week.

here is one that breaks it down.