Autopilot - Enhancement Request

[Tenly]

@autoflightlogic

Waypoint mission creation can be greatly enhanced - for some people - with the implementation of the following enhancement. I'm not sure if there is enough potential demand for something like this to warrant the development time - but it would have been a great help to me this weekend and in many upcoming weekends.

Justifications
1. Google Maps still has low resolution imagery in many areas - including an area I fly in regularly.
2. In other areas - where high-resolution imagery is available - it is often several years out of date - resulting in recent building and landscape changes being missing from the map
3. As Flight School cautions us, in some cases, Google Maps GPS co-ordinates are not completely accurate.

Enhancement
I'd like to propose a mode in which I could define a region in which I'd like to create waypoint missions. When engaged - Autopilot would - take my drone up to 400 feet and then fly a grid pattern, taking overlapping hi-res photos of the region. When complete - Autopilot would stitch them all together and allow me to use that high-res imagery INSTEAD OF Google Maps as the background for creating my waypoint missions!

I don't think I need to call out all of the advantages this would provide to pilots that want to create waypoint missions in areas where Google Maps is lacking.

(I suppose that this data might also be useful in any other flight mode in which people use satellite or hybrid view while flying.)

Here's a sample of the quality of imagery I was working with over the weekend.

@autoflightlogic - Would you please add this to the list of feature requests?

It would be awesome if you could tell me this was already on the list and should be coming in 3.4?

 

[Nasscar][]

Love it. . ..


Nas,

 

[FantomFlier]

@autoflightlogic

Waypoint mission creation can be greatly enhanced - for some people - with the implementation of the following enhancement. I'm not sure if there is enough potential demand for something like this to warrant the development time - but it would have been a great help to me this weekend and in many upcoming weekends.

Justifications
1. Google Maps still has low resolution imagery in many areas - including an area I fly in regularly.
2. In other areas - where high-resolution imagery is available - it is often several years out of date - resulting in recent building and landscape changes being missing from the map
3. As Flight School cautions us, in come cases, Google Maps GPS co-ordinates are not completely accurate.

Enhancement
I'd like to propose a mode in which I could define an region in which I'd like to create waypoint missions. When engaged - Autopilot would - take my drone up to 400 feet and then take overlapping hi-res photos of the region. When complete - Autopilot would stitch them all together and allow me to use the high-res imagery INSTEAD of Google Maps as the background for creating my waypoint missions!

I don't think I need to call out all of the advantages this would provide to pilots that want to create waypoint missions in certain areas.

(I suppose that this data might also be useful in any other flight mode in which people use satellite or hybrid view while flying.)

Here's a sample of the quality of imagery I was working with with weekend.
View attachment 50928

@autoflighylogic - Would you please add this to the list of feature requests?

It would be awesome if you could tell me this was already on the list and should be coming in 3.4?

Fascinating idea. You should pitch it to the other 3rd parties as well.

 

[Tenly]

Fascinating idea. You should pitch it to the other 3rd parties as well.

Good idea - and if Autopilot won't do it, I most certainly will. Having an accurate, high-res backdrop would make creating waypoint missions much easier and more accurate.

I may also pitch it to Google. They should open up an API and/or create their own app that lets drone pilots contribute new, up to date image data for the maps covering their area!

 

[Tenly]

I just had another interesting idea for an upgrade that might not take too much effort to implement.

I'd like to see the airspace app updated with an optional always-on or push to talk button which would provide the capability of having follow subject provide an audio track that can later, (or in real-time) be added to the video!

I see endless possibilities for such a capability!

 

[Tenly]

@autoflightlogic
I have another enhancement request - or perhaps just a request on "how-to" accomplish something.

This week, I created a series of fly-over videos for a nearby golf-course. I created them using the parking lot as my starting point. (The updated map tiles worked out phenomenally well! Thank you! I couldn't have done it without them!)

View attachment 62363

But tomorrow, I want to fly from an area on the other side of the course which is about 20m lower (altitude wise) than the parking lot.

So - my problem is that most of my waypoints are set for 30-50m now, but if I take off from "location 2", they will need to be adjusted by +20m.

I need to be able to do a batch modify on about 70 waypoints to "add 20m" to whatever their current altitude is set for....

...unless someone here can suggest another solution....? When I first engage the mission, I have to specify an "altitude reference"...can that dialogue somehow be used to accomplish my +20m? And what if I don't know that it's exactly a 20m difference? Is there a way to determine the exact difference in altitude between the 2 (or more) possible take off locations?

Question 2:
Is there any easy way to concatenation missions? Currently, my golf course video is split into missions that complete 3 holes at a time. If possible, I'd like to either automate running three missions in a row - or concatenate them into a single missions comprising 9 holes.


Google Imagery (before and after):

View attachment 62364

View attachment 62365