Will the Solo change altitude during follow me mode....

Brutaly · Aug 28, 2015

When the target changes altitude.

Or do i need a pilot that compensates for altitude when filming me and my 160 hp Polaris in deep Scandinavian snow?

Been looking at some other drones and all of them seem to need a pilot to operate the altitude and tilt of the gimbal and i was hoping that Solo being advertised as a smart drone fixes this.

Regards

Brutaly

SteveReno · Aug 28, 2015

Solo will do all your asking & more!
Temperature may be a factor for Solo/GoPro. Go read at 3DR & GoPro

Brutaly · Aug 28, 2015

Thanks for the reply, GoPro is ready to go and i will check out the specs regarding temperature on the Solo later.

Brutaly · Aug 28, 2015

Hmm, just found out in the manual that no less than 0 degrees celsius is allowed.

That is kind of bad since Yuneec at least says -10 which would be alright for snowmobiling in the winter. 0 will just make the window of opportunity to small for decent shots. We are talking in the late winter or early spring.

Brutaly · Aug 28, 2015

Now i am confused, i got this from a technical engineer at 3dr.

Hello xxxxxx,

No, it will not adjust the altitude.We will make sure that we work on this in the futer.

Best Regards,
xxxxxxx
[Technical Support Engineer]

erikgraham · Aug 28, 2015

First, regarding cold weather, I've flown a 3DR Iris+ in extreme cold (-10F) many times. The only problem is shortened battery life due to the cold. You also have to let the drone sit out in the cold for awhile to acclimate. I imagine the Solo will be the same. We'll see.

As to Follow Me,
The Solo will not adjust it altitude during a follow me. The issue sited by devs (a long time ago, don't ask me for a link) is safety. They were talking about all these cases where it could fly into a hill, etc.

The problem is that terrain data, which you'd have to use to cross check against the GPS location of the phone/tablet, isn't accurate enough. Meantime, the code does have plenty of stuff for terrain hugging, but that seems to only apply to fixed wing drones.

I sent feed back to 3DR (which I'm sure no one will ever look at, but I figured why not), suggesting a mode that combines Follow-me with Cable-cam. Something similar might even be possible in Tower already.

There is also a lot of code already in ardupilot for sonar, motionflow, and more.

With all that technology already in the code, I really hope they give us some kind of way to change altitude while following.

Brutaly · Aug 28, 2015

Ok, thx for the answer.

I will have to look around then or perhaps wait and see what Lily brings.. For me as a hobby photographer follow me is kind of gimmicky if you cant use it on your own. Without automatic altitude adjustment i cant see it being practical when riding my sled due to the terrain where i live.

The wizard which Yuneec is launching might also be an option in combination with my Q500 but no one seems to have a clue what it really brings.

Thx again for your concise answer.

Michael Stevenson · Aug 28, 2015

Brutaly said:
Ok, thx for the answer.

I will have to look around then or perhaps wait and see what Lily brings.. For me as a hobby photographer follow me is kind of gimmicky if you cant use it on your own. Without automatic altitude adjustment i cant see it being practical when riding my sled due to the terrain where i live.

The wizard which Yuneec is launching might also be an option in combination with my Q500 but no one seems to have a clue what it really brings.

Thx again for your concise answer.

Train a friend to fly the Solo for you.

pubal · Aug 29, 2015

Good thread. As summer winds to an end, I've been thinking about taking Solo snowboarding. It sounds like the answer is no. :-/

Vegasrobbi · Mar 19, 2016

I find my Solo does a great job framing the shot in Follow Me but lack of terrain following and proper gimbal control is very frustrating. This is not just a Solo issue my P3 acts the same way and I'm told the P4 is not much better.

This video shows how annoying Follow Me can be even on the slightest of grades requiring constant altitude and camera pitch inputs. The camera constantly pitches down to the start altitude requiring you to fly very high to keep the subject in frame; you can see if the gimbal is left alone the camera will point almost straight down.

Constant altitude inputs are required to keep the quad from hitting the ground, on this day my P3 actually brushed some of the weeds.

I'm told terrain following will be available soon for APM(hopefully Solo) and with proper gimbal control it will make the Follow Me function much more useful.