A few questions about Tower

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

I'm a relatively new pilot and Solo owner (just three months). My main interest is getting smooth beautiful cinematic shots. My main commercial video content I shoot is motorcycle review content in SoCal. I would like to expand into private and commercial real-estate video as the Solo and Tower seem like efficient tools for such.

I like that idea of utilizing Tower in setting preliminary flight paths in new locations that I have not had two opportunity to scout and set up smart shots at yet. To that end a few questions... (forgive any newbie questions as I could not find much documentation on Tower and am still learning drone terminology and technology).

1) What is a Spline Waypoint?
2) What does a Reset ROI command do exactly? (I understand setting an ROI but I don't understand where the camera is instructed to point after a Reset ROI command is initiated).
3) What is Do Jump?
4) What is Set Servo?
6) What is Realtime camera footprint in the user interface?
5) Is there a way to reset the default speed of the Solo in Tower? (I found default altitude preferences in the advanced settings menu within the settings menu but nothing for speed). It seems awful fast with a lot of aggressive pitching & rolling as it changes directions between way points. I understand I can set the first command as a reset speed command but it would be nice to not have to do that for every mission but set the default to speed that lends itself to nice cinematic movement.
6) Similar to question #5 - Is there anyway to slow down or smooth panning & tilting between ROI's? To get the Solo to behave more like it does when utilizing smart shots in the Solo app, i.e. nice smooth logarithmic camera moves, nut sudden herky jerky movements.

and lastly (for now)...

7) Has anyone figured a way to safely pause a Tower mission, jump to the Solo app and create and execute a few smart shots, and then continue on with the Tower mission. This was not something 3DR support recommended as their official response was "We don't recommend using both applications at the same time since that could lead to misbehavior. Doing so is completely at the customer's discretion" but I did read a thread here speculating if it could be done with one android and one iOS device - but it wasn't clear if any of the members were able to accomplish it. If it could be safely done it seems like a great way to save flight time/battery usage and new filming locations.

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

Start Here
Mission Planning — Mission Planner documentation

Then watch this

Contine with these

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

Thank you Pyrate.

I watched the first video already, really great video - it would have been difficult for me to have figured how to fly a mission using Tower without it. However having watched the video twice already I don't believe it answers my posted questions. I'll see if I can forward my questions to the video creator though YouTube...

I don't own a PC only Macs and an Acer Android tablet so I'm not sure I"d be able to use Mission Planner?

Pedals2Paddles · Sep 2, 2016

Right now, I don't believe you can stop an auto mission, do something else, then resume the mission where you left off. I recall discussion of that feature, but I believe it was a future add. It was a while ago last I remember though.

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

I figured the pausing and re-initiating missions would be a big ask.

The main thing I'd love to figure out is how to smooth out the transitions between ROIs & waypoints in Tower. Anyone have any experience with that? Also slowing down the default air speed?

Tower could be a powerful filming tool for new locations if I can get it to slowdown and smooth out its moves. It could be used to do a take one shot of a particular feature without using battery juice and then take 2 could be fine tuned with smart shots based off of how the video from the mission turned out.

One more important Tower question I forgot to post...
8) Is there a way to pinpoint a particular location I am unfamiliar with the topography of without physically being located there, such as punching in a specific address and/or GPS coordinates in Tower? Or perhaps changing to "street view" from satellite view and using road names to find a location in an unfamiliar area? Say for creating a mission to film a house in an unfamiliar neighborhood....

Pedals2Paddles · Sep 2, 2016

Insert a waypoint and change it to DO_SET_SPEED. It is in MPH. The default waypoint nav speed parameter in Arducopter is 10 meters per second, which is about 22mph. That is what it will use unless you put in a DO_SET_SPEED command as part of the mission.

The yaw behavior when it comes setting or clearing an ROI is not an adjustable parameter. The turtle/rabbit camera pan slider will probably effect that. But there is no making it logarithmic move in and out of that like it does with smart shots.

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

Sean Matic said:
Thank you Pyrate.

I watched the first video already, really great video - it would have been difficult for me to have figured how to fly a mission using Tower without it. However having watched the video twice already I don't believe it answers my posted questions. I'll see if I can forward my questions to the video creator though YouTube...

I don't own a PC only Macs and an Acer Android tablet so I'm not sure I"d be able to use Mission Planner?

So sorry, those are mission planner not tower
let me see what I can dig up on tower

The issue is, that is a lot of questions you have there.
its not going to be easy to address all that here

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

Thanks for the responses guys!

Pirate, sounds like I've got questions 5 - 7 more or less answered already. Questions 3 to 6 are menu terminology I did not know the definition of but I have a feeling that are less likely to pertain to cinematic video and probably more for land survey filming.

If anyone knows what exactly a spline waypoint vs a waypoint is and what exactly reset ROI is applicable please chime in.

Thanks again for the info guys, a wealth of stuff here that would take me quite a while to figure out on my own.

Cheers.

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

that one is easy
a spline waypoint smooths the path between points
so instead fo flying a straight line from point a to point be.
it will leave point a and approach point b from an angle that smooths the corner on its way to point C

if you have ever worked in a vector graphics program this is called a bezier curve

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

pyrate said:
that one is easy
a spline waypoint smooths the path between points
so instead fo flying a straight line from point a to point be.
it will leave point a and approach point b from an angle that smooths the corner on its way to point C

if you have ever worked in a vector graphics program this is called a bezier curve

I thought that might be it. That sounds like a preferable option for shooting video and attempting to smooth out flight to at least approach the look of the logarithmic smart shots. For my application I can't really use sections of video where the craft/camera suddenly jerks one way or another... I'll test it for results soon.

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

pyrate said:
that one is easy
a spline waypoint smooths the path between points
so instead fo flying a straight line from point a to point be.
it will leave point a and approach point b from an angle that smooths the corner on its way to point C

if you have ever worked in a vector graphics program this is called a bezier curve

Do you know the difference between changing a waypoint to an ROI vs using the 'Reset ROI" option?

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

ROI - Region of interest
it will yaw the camera to the way point, and keep it there as you pass through other way points
look at the circle way point, which is basically a built in orbit

reset ROI I imagine releases the Region of interes so if you flew through 3 points with a region of interest they vehicle would stay pointed at the ROI if you issued a reset ROI after point 3 the vehicle would return to face the direction it is flying or move to a new region of interest if set

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

pyrate said:
View attachment 4135

Fantastic. Thanks for the illustration.

Drone Moto · Sep 2, 2016

pyrate said:
ROI - Region of interest
it will yaw the camera to the way point, and keep it there as you pass through other way points
look at the circle way point, which is basically a built in orbit

I understand and have successfully utilized ROI's, there is also a "Reset ROI" option which I wasn't clear where that would reset the ROI to? That's what I was asking about - "Reset ROI"

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

Glad to help after sending you off in the wrong direction
though much about how missions are planned in mission planner apply to tower

Pedals2Paddles · Sep 2, 2016

If you make a waypoint and ROI, it will do as described above. Regardless of where or how the solo moves, the camera will remain pointed at that ROI. You can add waypoints after the DO_SET_ROI, and as it flies those waypoints, it will continue looking at the ROI. RESET ROI clears that and it will go back to flying around with nose/camera pointing ahead.

pyrate · Sep 2, 2016

Sean Matic said:
I understand and have successfully utilized ROI's, there is also a "Reset ROI" option which I wasn't clear where that would reset the ROI to? That's what I was asking about - "Reset ROI"

I think it just says to the copter stop watching that area
with no new ROI designated I assume it would go back to default behavior of facing the direction of flight

but to be quite honest I have never used it.
Maybe someone who has can correct me if I am wrong