Mission Planner (FPV Camera – iOS Waypoints App) Available Now

[PVFlyer]

I am about to practice using Mission Planner fpv camera with panorama mode and would like to verify correct procedure for start up. After reading the help files this is my first reading on the procedure.
1. Start up RC
2.Power up tablet after cacheing maps on internet
3.Power up Phantom.
4.Wait for safe to fly. sat locks and record home point.
5. Complete compass calibration.
6. Close down DJI Go app.
7. Start up Mission Planner, switch to camera section of app.
8. If signal lost indicator comes on close down Phantom and restart.
9. Start up Mision Planner again and wait for good signal and safe to fly message, check homepoint locked.
10. Perform start up control and push throttle up and hover to check all ok.
11. Fly manually to selected panrorama spot, adjust position of Phantom, camera tilt angle and do a practice rotate to ensure correct angles ,headings.
12. Switch to Panorama mode and do set up re camera tilt, number of photos.
13. Press fly and wait for auto panorama to complete.
14. return to home and land.
Please feel free to comment and suggest shortcuts/improvements. I prefer to have this type of procedure list so that I do not make stupid pre flight errors, especially reading how easy it is to cause crashes when reading the forums.

If there is no compass error, we don't recommend to perform compass calibration on every flight. You may then skip step 1..8. Check Important Notes section if you need to switch from DJI Go to FPV Camera.

The rest steps are good. In step 11, you don't need to adjust heading as it will always start shooting from 0 degree (north).

 

[Jeffdj]

Thank you for that info,
Is there a possibility of a further update to pano mode to incorporate the following:
1. Start pano shoot from designated bearing, either user set via app, or by manually rotating to required bearing.
2. Manually set number of photos, eg, 4/6/8 photos for designated pano spead, eg shoot a 180 degree horizontal pano. This might allow greater photo overlap.
The reason for this is to duplicate how I normally take panos on the ground that is by manually dictating when the pano is to start and finish.
I realise that the fully auto modes are great but them manual settings would increase the versatility. I do take panos manually from the Phantom just by maintaining position and rotating manually then taking each photo, however a predermined start point with control over number of photos and angles of rotation with auto performance of these manually set parameters including shutter release would be great.

 

[PVFlyer]

Thank you for that info,
Is there a possibility of a further update to pano mode to incorporate the following:
1. Start pano shoot from designated bearing, either user set via app, or by manually rotating to required bearing.
2. Manually set number of photos, eg, 4/6/8 photos for designated pano spead, eg shoot a 180 degree horizontal pano. This might allow greater photo overlap.
The reason for this is to duplicate how I normally take panos on the ground that is by manually dictating when the pano is to start and finish.
I realise that the fully auto modes are great but them manual settings would increase the versatility. I do take panos manually from the Phantom just by maintaining position and rotating manually then taking each photo, however a predermined start point with control over number of photos and angles of rotation with auto performance of these manually set parameters including shutter release would be great.

Thanks for the suggestions. I think 6/8 photos are good enough to cover 360° with reasonable overlap. You may ignore the rest of taken photos if you don't need them.

We might consider to set designated bearing upon you tap "Start" in basic Panorama mode to avoid complicating the UI.

 

[PVFlyer]

Is there a minimum/ maximum distance between waypoints.

The min/max distance between WPs are 2m (min) and 2000m (max) respectively.

 

[Jeffdj]

Here is a panorama I created with FPV Mission Planner in the panorama mode.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/DJI_0324 Panorama 2.mov

 

[PVFlyer]

Here is a panorama I created with FPV Mission Planner in the panorama mode.
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/DJI_0324 Panorama 2.mov

Nice pano! What app did you use to create such MOV pano that I can play it with QuickTime Player on PC? How many pictures did you use to stitch them?

 

[Jeffdj]

Nice pano! What app did you use to create such MOV pano that I can play it with QuickTime Player on PC? How many pictures did you use to stitch them?

I used Ptgui to stitch the 20 photos together then make a mov file as well as tiff and jpeg panorama files.
The only problem I have is that some devices/software do not play the mov files correctly. I think there are free software programs that will do the same thing.

 

[PVFlyer]

MOV pano seems working fine with Apple's QuickTime Player only on PC, though unsure about Mac. I use free Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor). ICE works well stitching 1-row & 3-rows panorama, and it very easy to use. Image Composite Editor - Microsoft Research

 

[realsting]

MOV pano seems working fine with Apple's QuickTime Player only on PC, though unsure about Mac. I use free Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor). ICE works well stitching 1-row & 3-rows panorama, and it very easy to use. Image Composite Editor - Microsoft Research

Doesn't play on Mac! What codec did you use for the mov?

 

[lenmcgilvary]

it plays on mac with vlc

 

[Jeffdj]

Doesn't play on Mac! What codec did you use for the mov?

Apparently PtGui mov files are only compatible with Qucktime 7 and below. Not sure what codec Pt uses, you dont seem to have any control over it.

 

[PVFlyer]

Share with you a simple tutorial of Create Spherical Panorama with FREE Microsoft ICE

It is fairly straight forward of shooting 360°x180° spherical panorama (20/26 photos) in Mission Planner with either Pano-WP or Panorama mission. However, stitching 20/26 photos together to share a spherical panorama could be a bit challenging and time consuming.

We share with you of using FREE Microsoft ICE 2.0 (Image Composite Editor) to stitch 20 photos together, publish and share to Photosynth by a few simple steps in 3-5 minutes. It's assumed you have installed the Microsoft ICE 2.0 and required components, as well as created an account in Photosynth.

• Open ICE 2.0 and Select "New Panorama From Images" button, then select all 20 photos shot by Mission Planner (with DJI Phantom 3 Professional).

• Keep "Simple panorama" and "Auto-detect" (by default) in IMPORT step, then click NEXT button. It will take 1-2 minutes to process and stitch photos together.

• Keep "Spherical" (by default) in STITCH step, then click NEXT button. It will take less than 1 minute to process.

• Click "Auto complete" in CROP step to straighten the panorama. It will take less than 1 minute to process. You might need to crop top/bottom manually if "Auto complete" couldn't completely straighten it up or leave it as is if you don't mind.

• Select Photosynth in EXPORT step and "Sign in..." a previous created account. Enter appropriate Appearance (Title, Tags, Description) and select Access (Visibility, Photo rights) as needed, then click "Publish to Photsynth" button.

• After published the panorama, you may copy the link (such as this sample Gold Coast Yacht Club) to share with your friends or public. You can zoom in/out and pan up/down/left/right in most (but not all) of browsers, including Internet Explorer, Firefox, iPhone/iPad Safari.

 

[PVFlyer]

Here is the view link Gold Coast Yacht Club - Photosynth

 

[Jeffdj]

Here are links to more Quicktime 7 mov panoramas. Unfortunately they were difficult to produce due to a number of issues, moving boats and lack of refernce points in areas of the sea in contrasty lighting. The free ICE stitcher couldnt handle these conditions but PtGui did, eventually!!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/Mermaids Pool8.mov
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/River mouth8.mov

PS warning they are UHD resolution files so will take some time to download and play.

 

[PVFlyer]

Here are links to more Quicktime 7 mov panoramas. Unfortunately they were difficult to produce due to a number of issues, moving boats and lack of refernce points in areas of the sea in contrasty lighting. The free ICE stitcher couldnt handle these conditions but PtGui did, eventually!!

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/Mermaids Pool8.mov
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/96701917/Video/River mouth8.mov

PS warning they are UHD resolution files so will take some time to download and play.

Wow, the 75MB mov QTVR panorama is impressive. I enjoy to tilt/pan/zoom it in QuickTime like a VR tour. Do you mind to share your raw 20 photos? I can try to stitch them with ICE and see if any workaround?

 

[Jeffdj]

Wow, the 75MB mov QTVR panorama is impressive. I enjoy to tilt/pan/zoom it in QuickTime like a VR tour. Do you mind to share your raw 20 photos? I can try to stitch them with ICE and see if any workaround?

No problem with sharing the 20 images. Do you want the dng RAW files or the jpeg files? I fiddled with the images today using Photoshop to process the DNG files to get some sort of uniformity before making the panoramas. It seemed to stitch better than before. The main problem is half the panorama is over the open sea and there are no reference points for the stitching software to use. The most difficult part is when the Phantom tales the vertically down images if it is over water.
The other problem was a number of boats were moving quickly while I was shooting the panorama and this created repeat and part images in the final stitch. I solved this in photoshop by cloning boats and the wake out of some images before stitching.

 

[PVFlyer]

No problem with sharing the 20 images. Do you want the dng RAW files or the jpeg files? I fiddled with the images today using Photoshop to process the DNG files to get some sort of uniformity before making the panoramas. It seemed to stitch better than before. The main problem is half the panorama is over the open sea and there are no reference points for the stitching software to use. The most difficult part is when the Phantom tales the vertically down images if it is over water.
The other problem was a number of boats were moving quickly while I was shooting the panorama and this created repeat and part images in the final stitch. I solved this in photoshop by cloning boats and the wake out of some images before stitching.

That's good enough if you can share those 20 JPEG images. We are working on some fancy panorama stitching in the app.

 

[Jeffdj]

I'm not sure how to send the images from dropbox in a folder. Hope they arrive.
Jeff

 

[Jeffdj]

Here are the other 10 images.

 

[Jeffdj]

I had a great deal of difficulty stitching these images together because some images, although there was overlap, there were no distinct refernce points in the sea. Whatever software you develop as part of the panorama mode it must allow manual selection of refernce points but also allow manual setting of heading./bearing for initial photo. This will allow you to manually set up starting heading to allow for large areas of featureless landscape. This is only a problem in certain areas.
Also its ok to make vr panoramas but how do the average viewer get to see them? The software needs to include a free viewer or be compatible with existing software that do not need to upload files to the web or cloud stations.
Congratulations on the work so far with FPV, it certainly makes for some easier work.
Jeff