New 3rd party gimbal for Solo + Flir

PdxSteve · Jul 12, 2016

New Thermal Camera Integration for Solo — 3DR News

http://www.oemcameras.com/uav-drone-components/3dr-gimbal.htm

aidanlou · Jul 12, 2016

yaaaaaassss

pyrate · Jul 12, 2016

Wow someone is proud of their hardware
2 grand for just a gimbal?

aidanlou · Jul 12, 2016

Prob mainly for enterprise though so that's pocket change

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 12, 2016

And that's not even including the camera...

jibcamera · Jul 12, 2016

patiently waiting for 3rd party universal gimbal made for solo...

PdxSteve · Jul 12, 2016

what would a "universal" gimbal be? Works with all cameras and all protocols and all proprietary connectors, triggering mechanisms and apis giving camera controls ever made?

jibcamera · Jul 12, 2016

PdxSteve said:
what would a "universal" gimbal be? Works with all cameras and all protocols and all proprietary connectors, triggering mechanisms and apis giving camera controls ever made?

yes and works throughout the universe intergalatically....no, just accommodates various form-factor cams, and uses a 1/4"-20 mount screw...smthng like that

RichWest · Jul 12, 2016

PdxSteve said:
New Thermal Camera Integration for Solo — 3DR News

Better than sliced bread...waiting for more details and actual usage results. Kudos to OEM Camera for the intergration to Solo.

pyrate · Jul 12, 2016

I still think someone could come up with a more platform agnostic gimbal.

PdxSteve · Jul 12, 2016

jibcamera said:
yes and works throughout the universe intergalatically....no, just accommodates various form-factor cams, and uses a 1/4"-20 mount screw...smthng like that

Even something like that would cost an arm and a leg. I'd guess way more than this flir one. How do you balance for such a wide variety of body styles each with a different center of gravity? How do you trigger the camera from the app without a standard for such with multiple camera manufacturers implementing their own way? How would you design something that fits into the back of a gopro hero bus for camera control, and connects to different bus systems that use different connectors in other cameras too?

PdxSteve · Jul 12, 2016

pyrate said:
I still think someone could come up with a more platform agnostic gimbal.

It depends on how much you want it to do. If you just want it to hold a camera level and steady with tilt control, sure you can design one for many cameras with an elaborate balancing system. The tricky part is interfacing the hardware with the app.

pyrate · Jul 12, 2016

hopefully the Edison strapped to a PH2 will drive some creativity

PdxSteve · Jul 12, 2016

A bit, but not much I'd think. It's really the camera manufacturers using their own standards since there is no IEEE spec or anything for them to follow for "camera control". It's like MS and Apple. Each has their own completely different way of doing things and they aren't really very compatible.

yvesOttawa · Jul 12, 2016

That's really out of most people's price range. FYI, our company is coming out with a "cost effective" thermal solution that is Flir Lepton based (80x60 resolution) for the entry level and 3D solo-geared direct plugin to GoPro gimbal. Feed will come out via HDMI (so your phone/tablet) for under $1000.

Aiming for August release/shipping. Similar to this

RichWest · Jul 12, 2016

PdxSteve said:
It's really the camera manufacturers using their own standards since there is no IEEE spec or anything for them to follow for "camera control".

That would be the best place to start, would hope that is what spins out of DroneCode - standards.

jibcamera · Jul 13, 2016

PdxSteve said:
Even something like that would cost an arm and a leg. I'd guess way more than this flir one. How do you balance for such a wide variety of body styles each with a different center of gravity? How do you trigger the camera from the app without a standard for such with multiple camera manufacturers implementing their own way? How would you design something that fits into the back of a gopro hero bus for camera control, and connects to different bus systems that use different connectors in other cameras too?

Well,,,to start, all we need is the ability to carry basically most point n shoots, actioncam, and hopefully some micro 4/3s and maybe even smalled bodied dslr's....with <20min flights times and cheap high capacity sd card storage, i dont need to trigger record...and to start, we dont need focus/iris or any bus control of any kind...its not like the solo app even lets you change all the settings anyway..cant adjust ISO via android app..among other things..... Im just saying, the moving parts to make this a reality are not really expensive,,can 3d print easily even...and im not certain about the dev side but isnt alot of whats needed to tilt avail at pastebin or smthng?

PdxSteve · Jul 13, 2016

Well you might be happy to know that Terrence Jarrod is working on a gimbal for the BM. He was an original 3dr employee and now at VisualAerobotics.

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 13, 2016

jibcamera said:
Well,,,to start, all we need is the ability to carry basically most point n shoots, actioncam, and hopefully some micro 4/3s and maybe even smalled bodied dslr's....with <20min flights times and cheap high capacity sd card storage, i dont need to trigger record...and to start, we dont need focus/iris or any bus control of any kind..

I guess that begs the question then... what is the use case for that? {insert camera here} on a gimbal with no ability to control it, take pictures, start/stop recording, etc. Would you even have live video? They all have different forms of video out interface, so it's difficult to make that "universal", even if you remove all the other functions you may not need while in the air.

The word "universal" gets very muddy, very quickly. The users of my system at work frequently ask me "can you make a universal {thing} to make it more versatile?" Sure, as long as you define what universal means, what you're willing to give up to have it, and how much harder you're willing to work make it do what you want. By the time you're done making it "universal", it still only works with some products (some rather than one, and not all), it costs more than buying the specific things to do the specific jobs, it takes 4x as much effort to configure and operate, and the performance blows.

Anything made for solo has to be marketable. Sure, there's a handful of us on here that enjoy tinkering, tuning, building, adjusting, and working with stuff like that. But that's not going to be marketable to the masses. And definitely not marketable to business users that need to arrive on a job, unzip the bag, fly, land, and leave.

jibcamera · Jul 13, 2016

My personal 'use-case' is cinematography/getting highest possible quality video footage(sensor+glass+imaging processor), and to a lesser extent stills, as possible from this class of quad. By universal, I didnt not mean "hey, let me put any and every camera that ever existed on this thing"..haha

There are probably 100's of "point n shoot" form factor cameras out there with many of them easily surpassing GP4B image quality,,albeit many wont do 4K video, more and more will every day.

But for example, take a Canon Powershot G7 X (destroys a GP4B across the board, with caveat of no 4k video, but it will do 1080/60)...weighs 300g, apparently the current 3dr gopro gimbal weighs ~310g, so you have about 100g more available payload capacity for a slightly beefier gimbal..Almost all of these cameras use some form of HDMI out for live view, so thats not really an issue either...

Form factor is the other key issue for my "universal" dream, and all that is required is '+' slotted baseplate with 1/4"-20 standard camera mounting screw. You use the slots to help achieve proper balance in the gimbal for various cameras balance points. The Canon G7 X dimensions are 4.1 x 2.4 x 1.6"

Im convinced this will happen eventually. And from what Ive seen with camera technology innovation, Why risk flying heavy rigs when the technology is already here to get amazing quality without any sacrifice from lighter weight rigs? Safer, Cheaper, Safer....my 2 cents