Solo, Sitescan, and viability as an enterprise sUAS

[Ed Beck]

Yessir! Just look over the UAVionics website. Rich capability all plug-and-play into the PH FMS. Now, how long will it be before their product secrets and code is stolen by employees on H1B Visa's? Just asking...
An H1B Visa holder from China stole all my son's code work at a GeoSeismic exploration firm here in Houston and he (my son) eventually got pushed out by the supervisor who hired said criminal, the supervisor being an unassimilated Chinese immigrant. There, I said it.

Can we please leave politics out of this forum?

 

[dmyhill]

Convince a big gold mine /construction company to procure 2x complete site scan systems.

Used 2x with not even a issue as described .

Prior to that- was using a solo with GoPro for over 12months without any upgrade

Can share .

Support form the paid premier 3DR support is second to none. Our Non geo location was not a issue either




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I was impressed with the people (sales) and technical experts that I interfaced with at 3DR. It doesnt suprise me that it is working well. I am very curious if their current sitescan system has an upgraded GPS board (beyond Rev 2.) If you ever pop one open, let me know.

 

[dmyhill]

...For photogrammetry to work, precision flight path is more critical than camera resolution, we need the UAV yaws certain degrees while tilting the camera to certain angles.

My client preferred RTF UAVs not because of cost. They want to avoid airworthiness issue. It is a risk management issue and FAA regulations issue that I don't have the answer.

Anyway, the reason I posted is, when you use dji UAV for photogrammetry project, do you need to use additional manual flight in data acquisition.

Thank you for your comments, I am attempting to continue learning about this. Regarding RTF, we have the same concerns. For instance, swapping out a GPS board and then having ANY failure could open us to additional liability (or that would be the fear). If it was done by a "qualified" technician, it would likely be fine. The other issue is size and ease of use. (Cost is a consideration, but far down the list.)

Regarding flight data, we use excessive amounts of ground control points, and it doesn't seem to be an issue. Pix4D seems to be able to stitch the photos fairly well, and solve for the yaw, location, etc with a fairly rough starting point.

Certainly, a P4 isn't the best possible solution, but it was an easy implementation to get our feet wet.

 

[dmyhill]

The DJI Inspire series has a much better camera. I thought the Inspire 1 had the Sony camera but I'm not seeing that in the specs.

The P4 Pro has the 1" Sony sensor, and a mechanical shutter. (And DJI dropped the mic and walked off.)

 

[dmyhill]

Site Scan has an upgraded gps. I had 18 sats while flying the one we have at work. Still had a touch of wander in the lines but your going to have that in units of this size if you don't upgrade to am rtk type system.

Thanks, that makes sense. Wonder if the are using the mro everyone else is buying. Would love to have someone pop the top off and take a look.

 

[Bigskyflyer]

"Flamed?" So here's some conversation...

First...what was this post all about, bottomline? Unless you are flying a DJI Inspire, doesn't that little phantom look at least a bit toy like? You now know that you are an Autodesk expert and not a UAV expert....that was a good thing you got your firm some consulting help.
You also likely surmised that the ChiCom DJI product line/SDK has as much stolen code in it as their developers can ferret out of the open system developer sites all over the world. I'm with the other guys in this group - OPEN SYSTEMS from FREE PEOPLE developers...= the future of sUAS
I got on board with 3DR when I bought an Iris+ and have been impressed ever since. Wind-tunnel tested airframes and well functioning open source software that turned a novelty item (multi-copter) into a useable tool. And the Solo, with the Solex or Tower apps, makes a great tool, albeit one that takes skill to master. Too bad 3DRs management made the decisions they did...but that's history. And that's my perspective/opinion...we all got one.

Now, DJI is not the only game in town....IdeaFly is cranking out Pixhawk-powered multicopters from Shenzhen (ShenZhen Idea-fly Technology Co., Ltd) ...making our point that the sUAS biz will be well-served by Pixhawk and Pixhawk-2 FMS' in the future. I don't see any reason a startup can't take the 3DR and IdeaFly designs and start making some good product in San Diego or Austin under license...start as a parts supplier, like 3DR did way back when. IMHO, the Shenzen crowd doesn't play on a level-playing field...so there's that.

btw: did you ever notice that it seems like most of the "drones" flying illegally in controlled airspace are DJI phantoms either on a fly-away or being piloted by guys who are too stupid to know better? The new client I have said the US EPA came out one day with their little Phantom ("to do an inspection") and promptly crashed into the company's equipment....without operator input.....geez.
At any rate, the FAA could take their usual precision approach to regulation and ground all Phantoms flying commercially due to "lack of confidence in the software safety of the Naze FMS used by DJI." And then were would DJI be? This is not a far-fetched possibility...the Part 107 system will eventually have links back to Part 23, aircraft airworthiness standards.

Conversation end.

Your last paragraph, sir, is ridiculous. Maybe so many phantoms are involved in what you call flyaways or entering no fly zones(I would like to see your, so many, examples of this) is because there are well over a half million phantoms out there, which is more than all other makes combined. Granted, there are some folks that are too stupid to know better and that includes some that fly solo's. I am quite sure, percentage wise, there are just as many issues with every manufacturer.

 

[Richard Nawara]

I was impressed with the people (sales) and technical experts that I interfaced with at 3DR. It doesnt suprise me that it is working well. I am very curious if their current sitescan system has an upgraded GPS board (beyond Rev 2.) If you ever pop one open, let me know.

Will keep you all posted .

"Sitescan with autodesk "

What I do in professional surveying and mapping n modeling for 22yrs has taken the leap.

Try it to believe !

Don't really care now if my solo hits the deck or goes obsolete ! I will have my professional platform with any hardware..!

Had 1x solo for 16months with no issues no crashes .

Tip! always understand its limit n what you're doing to most important "Use common Sense"


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[Ed Beck]

The P4 Pro has the 1" Sony sensor, and a mechanical shutter. (And DJI dropped the mic and walked off.)

I'd hold off on the mic drop. I'm not going to be happy until I can send a camera with all the capabilities of my DSLR up. I'm willing to compromise a little and send a less expensive DSLR up simply because I'm reluctant to lift $5k worth of gear.

I think that the improved imaging is great, and is obviously better than the GP, but not not worthy of a mic drop.