New 3rd party gimbal for Solo + Flir

Pedals2Paddles · Jul 14, 2016

That narrows down "universal" to be a little more specific and reasonable. More like, versatile with reasonable limitations. I think the biggest complaint will be the inability to control it. You would have to just start/stop recording from the ground. And if you want stills, have it start doing auto-shots every X seconds, again from the ground before takeoff.

All of the above works great for people like us. But it becomes a problem to sell to people who do not have the time, patience, or ability to properly install and adjust a gimbal. That makes it tough to sell enmass.

yt lee · Jul 16, 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?

Most cam use USB as interface why not start from USB and store cam specific command as add on.

Deleted member 5038 · Sep 27, 2016

yvesOttawa said:
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

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Hi,

Where do you stand with your development, please ?
Ready for shipping to France ?

yt lee · Sep 27, 2016

It would help if you can post the spec of your fir cam and gimbal.

SARDG · Sep 27, 2016

Michel31 said:
Where do you stand with your development, please ?
Ready for shipping to France ?

yt lee said:
It would help if you can post the spec of your fir cam and gimbal.

Plenty of non-info online.

With a few searches I've found:
The website at the end of the YT video (PIXRthermal.com) is a broken link.
It appears they may have sold the technology and distribution to Bradatech who was allegedly marketing it as a full-blown RTF solution. RTF Solution generally means "we only sell it this way, and it's going to coast you big bucks".

In YouTube, you can "Show More" and see some of the story.

If you go to http://www.bradatech.com/ and search for "FLIR", you'll find nothing.

I suspect it's all DOA.

@yvesOttawa last posted a month ago, so perhaps this will get his attention.

yt lee · Sep 27, 2016

People use this type of setup is mainly for commercial application. They don't place order based on hearsay or YT video, one needs to see spec on official site, if fit their need, arrange a trial test.

SARDG · Sep 27, 2016

yt lee said:
People use this type of setup is mainly for commercial application. They don't place order based on hearsay or YT video, one needs to see spec on official site, if fit their need, arrange a trial test.

Right! Exactly why I posted my findings. Unfortunately, there Is no official site or product to place an order for!. Affordable FLIR just came and went.

yt lee · Sep 27, 2016

Emerging technologies like wide fries, plenty of smokes, pop out quick, draw a lot of attention and excitement, then die. Just keep plugging away. It will come when the technology mature.

cynfab · Sep 27, 2016

Just a heads up for you folks clamouring for an "affordable" Thermal IR solution for Solo.
In April I demonstrated a proof of concept system using a Flir One (160x120 pixels) flying on a Solo with video provided through the HDMI connector.
Solo Development Area

Since then I have gotten the basic system to work using ONLY the Solo and the Flir One. No aux computer needed, However it is still a
bit fiddily in that there are some start up issues and it uses my recompiled kernel, my initramfs:
Compiling additional drivers for Solo USB port, my alternate userland as well as my driver for the
Flir One. The only other down side is that it takes a LOT of the Solo's CPU time. To me this is not acceptable as it might interfere with SmartShots
or Tower missions, that is why I am still working on a workable Plan B solution.

Deleted member 5038 · Sep 28, 2016

cynfab said:
Just a heads up for you folks clamouring for an "affordable" Thermal IR solution for Solo.
In April I demonstrated a proof of concept system using a Flir One (160x120 pixels) flying on a Solo with video provided through the HDMI connector.
Solo Development Area

Since then I have gotten the basic system to work using ONLY the Solo and the Flir One. No aux computer needed, However it is still a
bit fiddily in that there are some start up issues and it uses my recompiled kernel, my initramfs:
Compiling additional drivers for Solo USB port, my alternate userland as well as my driver for the
Flir One. The only other down side is that it takes a LOT of the Solo's CPU time. To me this is not acceptable as it might interfere with SmartShots
or Tower missions, that is why I am still working on a workable Plan B solution.

Well... excellent, but too high profile for me... I'd rather find a product off the shelf... I see only FLIR PRO with their 3DR gimbal...
Need to firm up a bit more my business case to be able to afford it, while dreaming prices lower soon...

yt lee · Oct 1, 2016

cynfab said:
Just a heads up for you folks clamouring for an "affordable" Thermal IR solution for Solo.
In April I demonstrated a proof of concept system using a Flir One (160x120 pixels) flying on a Solo with video provided through the HDMI connector.
Solo Development Area

Since then I have gotten the basic system to work using ONLY the Solo and the Flir One. No aux computer needed, However it is still a
bit fiddily in that there are some start up issues and it uses my recompiled kernel, my initramfs:
Compiling additional drivers for Solo USB port, my alternate userland as well as my driver for the
Flir One. The only other down side is that it takes a LOT of the Solo's CPU time. To me this is not acceptable as it might interfere with SmartShots
or Tower missions, that is why I am still working on a workable Plan B solution.

If i understood your post correctly, you are using the radio control for flir related computation.

The solo computing resources are good but they are not great. We tried it with real-time sfm, it failed miserably.

cynfab · Oct 1, 2016

In my Plan A configuration, I have replaced the HDMI input to the gstreamer pipeline with my own Flor One driver and videoloopback.ko module. This provides input to a new gstreamer pipeline which takes the Thermal image and the Visual image and puts them side by side. The resulting image is sent to the h264 encoder and sent via UDP as does the normal Solo video stream. This works because I was able to rebuild the kernel so as to be able to compile videoloopback.ko from source. I also had to rebuild the squashfs and initramfs.
The problems I ran into is that the new gstreamer pipeline consumes a LOT more CPU cycles than the old one. It is doing a LOT more too, which was expected. But not to the extent that I am seeing ~70+% CPU used just by the gstreamer pipeline.
There is more to do, but I'v got other irons in the fire and this has now moved to the back burner for a while.
For more details in the process of rebuilding the kernel & initramfs see:
Compiling additional drivers for Solo USB port

yt lee · Oct 1, 2016

The video pipeline imho is Solo Archie's heel. Isn't it

cynfab · Oct 1, 2016

Indeed, as is the ancient kernel and gstreamer0.10 and lack of sources for the shipping kernel. IMHO ;>))

yt lee · Oct 1, 2016

When solo first came out, we did an informal tear down. We heard GoPro was doing their own quad. We speculated
GoPro short changed 3DR.

Now, GoPro quad is out. It would be interesting if someone do a comparison regarding the video pipeline.

cynfab · Oct 1, 2016

Well we know that the Karma developers have had the benefit of watching 3DR go through its' DIY period and then try its' hand at the consumer market. It also looks like they went with an all-in-one board with most everything on it (see pix attached). Once someone does a teardown of a Karma we will know more. And once a Karma is in the hands of a "developer/hacker" we will know more about what makes it tick.
I love hacking on my Solos. It's not rocket science, but it is challenging.

yt lee · Oct 1, 2016

Karma has the qualcomm chip so it is logical for all in one design. On the other hand, the chip was designed with built in camera. The question is does GoPro use its own or not.

yvesOttawa · Oct 16, 2016

SARDG said:
Plenty of non-info online.

With a few searches I've found:
The website at the end of the YT video (PIXRthermal.com) is a broken link.
It appears they may have sold the technology and distribution to Bradatech who was allegedly marketing it as a full-blown RTF solution. RTF Solution generally means "we only sell it this way, and it's going to coast you big bucks".

In YouTube, you can "Show More" and see some of the story.

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

If you go to Coming Soon - Future home of something quite cool and search for "FLIR", you'll find nothing.

I suspect it's all DOA.

@yvesOttawa last posted a month ago, so perhaps this will get his attention.

Hi,

We are still releasing this product but because of a delay with the visible spectrum camera used, we had to postpone the release until November. FYI, the visible camera will be 1080p full frame and the Flir used is a Lepton at 80x60.

I will have more details in the coming weeks.

thanks for your patience and continued interest.

Yves

NigelTM · Oct 17, 2016

yvesOttawa said:
Hi,

We are still releasing this product but because of a delay with the visible spectrum camera used, we had to postpone the release until November. FYI, the visible camera will be 1080p full frame and the Flir used is a Lepton at 80x60.

I will have more details in the coming weeks.

thanks for your patience and continued interest.

Yves

Any news on price and if you'll ship to the UK?