SKYPIXEL.ORG

Aerial imaging using small, unmanned aircraft systems. Also, I work at DJI.

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Hi, everyone! I’m starting the process of migrating content from Skypixel.org to my new site, drone.farm. DJI is using my original name from this site for their media sharing network (with my permission), and now that I’m no longer with DJI, I need to move somewhere else. Thanks for being here at Skypixel.org with me over the years—let’s continue the journey over at drone.farm!

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DJI has released a teaser video for the new product that will be announced on March 1, 2016. 

I’m excited because the video suggests a change in form from the venerable Phantom. Not much is revealed, but does tease at least one additional lens-based sensor, so we can expect more sophisticated object avoidance than just ultrasonic (and likely, something forward-facing). As I mentioned in my CES drone summary, it’s likely 2016 will be the year of rudimentary object avoidance in consumer drones.

The video is named, “Return To Your Senses”—a bit strange because the industry didn’t started with any “senses” in the way that DJI is likely talking about; a “return” seems to me to be a little strange for the theme, but is consistent with historical tag lines that don’t live up to the quality of the video productions themselves.

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Volume measurement from drone photogrammetry drops in price

(originally written for DroneCoalition and reproduced here on Skypixel.org)

Yesterday, DroneDeploy announced Volume Measurements, an enhancement to their web-based photogrammetry service that enables rapid volume estimation using only a few clicks of the mouse. At the moment, drone-based volume estimation is commonly used for stockpile monitoring and is one of the few current use cases for drones that has clear ROI benefits.

To calculate volume in DroneDeploy, all a user needs to do is draw a polygon around an object and click "Calculate."

Calculating volume in DroneDeploy

I get excited about reading announcements, but there is no replacement for actually out new features. Only maps processed after 7am PT on Feb 3 support the new feature, so I asked DroneDeploy's support team to reprocess one of my old maps of my house. I was preparing to fill in a drained swimming pool and had previously done volume calculations using Pix4Dmapper Pro to see how much dirt would be required. I thought doing the same calculation using DroneDeploy would be educational.

I loaded the reprocessed map, clicked a rough polygon around the pool, and then clicked "Calculate." After a few seconds, I had my volume calculation.

DroneDeploy's Volume Measurement tool gave me the volume of my empty pool

Some folks might prefer to do volume measurements using the Digital Surface Model (DSM) view, which is a view that visualizes elevation using color.

Volume Measurement in DroneDeploy in DSM view

In DroneDeploy, you can view 3D maps, but you cannot visualize volume measurements in 3D.

3D view of my drained pool

Two other photogrammetry apps commonly used with drones, Pix4Dmapper Pro and Agisoft PhotoScan, also support volume measurements. Here is the volume measurement of the same pool volume from the same map data using Pix4D:

Volume measurement of my empty pool using Pix4Dmapper Pro

One thing I really like about using Pix4D is that I can interact with my data and annotations. For example, I can show only the measured volume, which gives me a good idea of what kind of space I'm looking at, but it does require running a native app on a computer.

Pix4D's visualization tools are powerful

And now, the results:

Pix4D reports a volume of 75.87 cubic meters, or 99.23 cubic yards. DroneDeploy reported a volume of 98.4 cubic yards. Those measurements are within 1% of each other.

DroneDeploy's announcement says that they  have seen accuracy to within 1-2% of professional, ground-based scanning using laser methods, but emphasizes that you must have good data in order to get good results (see their detailed guide for more). Good data is really important not just for volume measurements, but for photogrammetry in general. Having said that, I've been impressed by what data from a casual flight produces using modern photogrammetry software. A $799 DJI Phantom 3 Advanced and a $99/month software subscription gets you automatic aerial mapping, orthomosaics, 3D maps, and volume measurements, which is almost unbelievable (see below for more details about pricing).

Pix4D's products include a lot more detail about measurements and accuracy, and their apps always expose possible error so you know how accurate your data is. Geo-referenced drone data produces maps that are often accurate to just a few centimeters, but adding Ground Control Points (GCPs) and explicit, known measurements of objects on the ground can increase accuracy dramatically. Pix4D's showcases about volumetric analysis are interesting reads.

I haven't used AgiSoft PhotoScan's volume measurement feature, but it definitely looks more complicated, requiring that you close the volume manually before calculations are possible. Both DroneDeploy and Pix4D estimate the base surface from which volume calculations are done. There might be an explicit way in Pix4D to close the volume to measure complex volumes with a strange base surface, but I would probably map a complex base surface before the materials are placed on it (if possible) and then subtract the two volumes.

DroneDeploy paid plans, including the $99/month Pro Plan and $499/month Precision Plan both support volume measurement. You can play with volume measurements for free as part of their 30-day Pro trial, and of course, can use their free plan forever for mapping visualizations and sharing.

To get volume measurements in Pix4D, which is a desktop-based software application that also supports cloud processing, you'll need Pix4Dmapper Pro, which costs $350/month, with discounts for annual and lifetime plans. Pix4Dmapper Mesh, which is designed for use with drone data, costs $499/year, but doesn't allow for volume measurements (it only supports linear and area measurements). Pix4D also has a free version of their app called Pix4dmapper Discovery.

If you're new to photogrammetry and have just read this article, you're probably now a bit confused now about the various products/services and what they do. The best way to educate yourself about photogrammetry is to put your drone in the air and try it yourself. Both DroneDeploy and Pix4D have free versions and offer time-expiring trials of their paid offerings. If you're flying a DJI Phantom 3 or Inspire 1, you can use mobile apps from DroneDeploy and Pix4D (Pix4Dcapture) to automatically capture map data from the air, and as I mentioned above, the $799 DJI Phantom 3 Advanced is an absolute steal right now as an aerial platform that can automatically capture maps accurate to just a few centimeters using free software. We live in the future!

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Intel (in collaboration with Ars Electronica Futurelab) showed off 100 small drones swarming in concert to a performance of a bastardized version of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony (incorporating Intel’s jingle). The demonstration was pulled off in Flugplatz Ahrenlohe, Tornesch, Germany, last November, and the swarming stunt won a Guinness World Record for “Most Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) airborne simultaneously.” Intel CEO Brian Krzani showed footage of the event for the first time during his CES keynote talk in January.

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The DJI Phantom 3 Advanced is on sale at B&H Photo for $799 ($200 off), which is a ridiculously low price. The Amazon (Prime) price is $849 shipped, which is also a great deal. It’s likely that these sale prices are a result of the Phantom 3 4K being announced and a plan to phase out the Phantom 3 Advanced in favor of what is likely a higher-margin Phantom 3 Professional, but I’d rather have a 2.7K camera (12-megapixel stills) with Lightbridge + dual positioning receivers (GPS and GLONASS) than a 4K camera that uses Wi-Fi and only GPS.

Get the Phantom 3 Advanced while you can, at this price—it was already a steal for its feature set at $999, and at $799, it’s crazy.

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SkyGates, a virtual racing gates proof of concept for Eagle Tree’s Vector Flight Controller, looks like it could be a great flight training tool.

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Congratulations to DJI and FLIR for the announcement of the Zenmuse XT Thermal Camera! I’ve been waiting for this particular collaboration to bear fruit for a long time, and it’s super exiting to see it come to life.

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Hi, everyone! Are you going to buy a toy drone this holiday season? If you are, I have a plea: don't buy crappy drones! And if you do, don't fly them outside! I was interviewed as an expert today as part of a TV segment that will air next Tuesday. Part of the show involved showing what it's like to buy and use random, no-name "drones" (toy quadcopters). The reporter was actually not bad as a first-time pilot, especially when tasked with flying toy quadcopters outside, but during an unsupervised moment (I went inside to get something), she flew one of the toy drones too high (about 50 feet up). Immediately, the wind took it out a couple hundred feet from us. I ran outside, took over the controls, and tried to fly it back; unfortunately, we were flying a fairly crappy toy quadcopter designed for indoor use, and it could not overcome the wind. Eventually, the quadcopter descended out of sight; luckily, we were flying over a shrubby hill, and the toy quad was small and light.

(the rest of this article is at my personal website, echeng.com)

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Tested, Adam Savage, and Field Notes have teamed up to bring you the Field Notes/Tested.com UAS Flight Log (shown here with one of the original prototypes). You're all logging all your flights, right? ;)

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Raw analog FPV footage from a flight with a Blade Nano QX FPV (a 22 gram / 0.78 oz FPV quadcopter) from a drone-themed gathering at Greylock VC in San Francisco organized by Chris McCann / Greylock. Participants included Adam Bry (Skydio), Andreas Raptopoulos (Matternet), Antoine Balaresque (Lily), Buddy Michini (Airware), Dan Burton (DroneBase), Dr. Greg McNeal and Ben Marcus (Airmap), Dr. Parimal K. "PK" (NASA), Eric Cheng (self), Paul Doersch (Kespry), Viraj Tipnis (SkyFund), Romeo Durscher (DJI), Jerry Chen (Greylock).

Flight by Eric Cheng, recorded with Fat Shark Dominator V2 FPV goggles.

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It’s hard to beat DJI’s Black Friday sale. Until November 30, a Phantom 3 Professional w/extra battery is on sale for $1,159, and Phantom 3 Standard is $599! The extra battery retails at $149, making a P3 Pro w/extra battery normally cost $1408.

Meanwhile, Amazon is selling the P3 Pro for $1,129, and an extra battery for $144, for a total of $1273. Some might prefer to pay $114 more for Amazon’s liberal return policy and fast, free shipping (on Prime).

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The Spinido DJI Battery dock for Phantom 2 and 3 looks like it could be a great accessory for Phantom owners. Compatibility with both the P2 and P3 is bizarre, though, since the connectors are different. This could be a great alternative to DJI’s 4-battery Charging Hub. Both this battery dock and the DJI one charge only one battery at a time, but at least that all charge up without you having to swap them out.

Note that I haven’t tried the Spinido dock personally—let me know how it works, if you buy one! (initial Amazon reviews are good)

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The wonderful folks at Tested have put up the video of my talk from the Tested Live Show, which took place at the Castro Theater in San Francisco on October 23, 2015. The talk is about our Good Morning America trip to Iceland to broadcast live from the Holuhraun volcano eruption. I gave a longer version of this talk at e.g. earlier this year, but Tested beat e.g. in getting the talk online, so this is the first time you'll see behind-the-scenes footage and video of Ferdinand Wolf (Skynamic) and I actually landing an Inspire 1 on the lava flow and filming it from above.

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At Drone World Expo this week, DJI’s VP of Policy and Legal Affairs, Brendan Schulman, made an presentation about DJI’s new GEO geofencing system. It looks like a huge leap forward, and will allow operators to override geofencing information once an accountability trail is established.

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A month ago, at WSJ.D Live, seven autonomous DJI Phantom 3 quadcopters lifted off the ground and performed a drone ballet, arranging themselves in patterns to music. Spark Aerial were the technical wizards behind the show, using DJI’s SDK to control the small swarm of Phantoms. Swarming quadcopters isn’t new, but prior examples of drone swarming required external position tracking or one-off drones made by research organizations like KMEL Robotics (since acquired by Qualcomm) and ETH Zurich. Parrot’s AR Drone also does swarm dances at various events, but uses external position indicators (a visually-encoded floor) and are done in controlled environments.

The WSJ.D drone ballet is really interesting; it hasn’t been covered in the press very much, but the event is as an early indicator of what is possible with current, off-the-shelf drone technology, even at such an early phase in the larger arc of what drones will be capable of doing.

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BTS video from Good Morning America's #GMA40 #drone hour with Becky Worley, DJI (Randy Jay Braun, Michael Patrick Perry, Brendan Schulman, Stacy Weskerna Garlington), Randy Scott Slavin, xCraft UAV and Renée Lusano.

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We had a great time hanging out on Good Morning America last night as part of GMA’s 40-hour live celebration of being on the air for 40 years. We talked drones for a full hour from the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose. Becky Worley hosted, and we were joined by DJI (Randy Braun, Michael Perry, and Brendan Schulman, New York City Drone Film Festival (Randy Scott Slavin), Renée Lusano (Queen of the Dronies). As a bonus, I got to plug my book!