No flight lines in Tower survey mission

Ketch · Mar 3, 2016

franknitty69 said:
i tested perkele's work around and it works. if you connect to solo before creating your survey it works. so this an easier workaround until 3dr services v1.5.2 is released.

That is correct, just connect up to solo and it works like charm. I should of posted this sooner
Ketch

Rusty Jones · Mar 4, 2016

Yeah, but I also use Tower for other multirotors

Jim..... · Mar 8, 2016

Survey lines are back.

perkele · Mar 8, 2016

Wohoo!

A little off topic, but..
How are you triggering the Gopro when doing an aerial survey with Tower? I was out last weekend and did some tests. I set up Gopro to do time lapses ( in video mode) as I found in a howto at diydrones (I think it was). It did not store any pictures or time lapse movie when I used Tower. It stopped the time lapse recording as soon as I hit "Auto" in Tower. But each camera shot area were displayed during the flight on the map in Tower.
Now I found that when you create your survey and upload it to Solo it creates a start camera waypoint and a stop camera waypoint and when looking at the start camera waypoint it sets the distance to trawel between the pictures. I was not aware of that and that must work pretty fine with Gopro as the shutter can be controlled from the tablet. That is far better than time lapse. Is that how you are doing? I will try this if only the rain will stop...

Gopro 4 black and Nexus 9 is the stuff I am using.

perkele · Mar 8, 2016

Jim. I like your Avatar

Jim..... · Mar 8, 2016

perkele said:
Jim. I like your Avatar

Thanks, I brought a flir one for my Iphone, same with you?

Jim..... · Mar 8, 2016

perkele,

I don't use the Gopro as a mapper camera but instead use a Canon s100. I'm lazy and just use CHDK intervolmeter @ 3secs.

I know for example the 3DR Aero-M uses the cam trigger - distance function and one day will try to get it to work.

perkele · Mar 8, 2016

Jim..... said:
Thanks, I brought a flir one for my Iphone, same with you?

No, I have a "hacked/upgraded" Flir E4.

Jim..... · Mar 8, 2016

perkele said:
No, I have a "hacked/upgraded" Flir E4.

Cool, How long before we get a flir vue for Solo?

franknitty69 · Mar 8, 2016

perkele said:
Wohoo!

A little off topic, but..
How are you triggering the Gopro when doing an aerial survey with Tower? I was out last weekend and did some tests. I set up Gopro to do time lapses ( in video mode) as I found in a howto at diydrones (I think it was). It did not store any pictures or time lapse movie when I used Tower. It stopped the time lapse recording as soon as I hit "Auto" in Tower. But each camera shot area were displayed during the flight on the map in Tower.
Now I found that when you create your survey and upload it to Solo it creates a start camera waypoint and a stop camera waypoint and when looking at the start camera waypoint it sets the distance to trawel between the pictures. I was not aware of that and that must work pretty fine with Gopro as the shutter can be controlled from the tablet. That is far better than time lapse. Is that how you are doing? I will try this if only the rain will stop...

Gopro 4 black and Nexus 9 is the stuff I am using.

you should use photo mode as missions that utilize camera commands can directly trigger the gopro. so survey, scans or regular missions with camera commands will trigger the gopro automatically.

perkele · Mar 8, 2016

Jim..... said:
Cool, How long before we get a flir vue for Solo?

I would not hold by breath

I'm in mapping mode now, maybe later. Need to make it less heavy and figure out how to trigger the camera. At the moment I can't even trigger the Gopro in Tower for some reason.

Jim..... · Mar 8, 2016

As Frank said above, does the GoPro not trigger in photo mode?

perkele · Mar 8, 2016

franknitty69 said:
you should use photo mode as missions that utilize camera commands can directly trigger the gopro. so survey, scans or regular missions with camera commands will trigger the gopro automatically.

It did not work at all, it looks like it triggers the Gopro but there are no photos stored. I set Gopro to default start in camera mode to be sure it is in photo mode. I can take photos by pointing at the tablet and they are stored at the SD card. No luck in Survey mission for some reason. To be continued...

franknitty69 · Mar 8, 2016

perkele said:
It did not work at all, it looks like it triggers the Gopro but there are no photos stored. I set Gopro to default start in camera mode to be sure it is in photo mode. I can take photos by pointing at the tablet and they are stored at the SD card. No luck in Survey mission for some reason. To be continued...

so if you use the 3dr solo app to take a picture it works. but if you create a survey mission in tower and fly the mission with the gopro in photo mode are you saying that no pictures are taken?

if so what firmware solo are you on?

perkele · Mar 9, 2016

Yes, that is correct.
I think I'm on the latest versions, no updates availabe.
According to System info in Solo app:
App 2.1.0
Solo 2.1.0
Autopilot 1.2.23
Gimbal 1.3.4
Controller 2.1.0
Controller frimware 1.2.8

and Gopro is HD4.02.03.00.00 according to the Gopro app. I dont know if it is referring to Camera model or to firmware. The update firmware icon does not appear in any of the Gopro programs I am using.

franknitty69 · Mar 9, 2016

that is a very odd anomaly. if you use tower and just fly in loiter can you take pictures using the solo video widget?

perkele · Mar 9, 2016

I do can take pictures with Tower when flying in loiter, manually by hitting the shutter button on the screen.
It is the survey missions that still get back with no pictures. Don't know what I'm doing wrong. The surveys I have tested with have a camera trigger waypoint as in post #24 and I have chosen the correct camera. During the survey the map is covered with blue areas where pictures were taken. The sidelaps and overlaps on the screen do not correspond to the survey settings tho.

Ketch · Mar 10, 2016

A basic question: If you upload a mission of way points, or a survey with flight lines without the auto takeoff and land option, does Tower allow you to fly manually back to the starting liftoff point after the SOLO reaches the last way-point in the mission? I have watched several good Tower tutorials, but none addressed that issue. I have both a Phatom 2 and a new Solo, and believe the solo is much more stable and responsive to manual control, but am hesitant doing my first Tower mission till I know I can take manual control at the end of a Tower mission.

Jubalr · Mar 10, 2016

No problem Ketch. You can take control from the mission during, before, or after.

Ketch · Mar 10, 2016

Thanks Jubair, I have one more basic/stupid question: how do I "take control" , do the flight controls
override the mission any time I use them, or do I hit the pause button, etc? Also at the end of the mission (last way-point) does it go into loiter and that gives me manual control. I had some interesting scenarios with the Phantom 2, and don't want a repeat with the SOLO.