I'm a very conservative flyer, but after about 10 months with the Iris, building flying skills with a good micro, and making the Iris+ upgrades, I needed to push the limits a bit. The Iris+ was absolutely rock solid.This was a reality capture Auto mission with stock Iris+ upgrade, Tarot 2d, and a GoPro that was able to handle the following conditions without a single issue:
-Well below the horizion, about 100' down and adjacent to the far hillside at arming, with a mission requiring GPS lock.
-Aggressive flight timed at 9:48 (with no battery warning even).
-Catastrophic consequences over water and rocks at low and high elevation and proximity to steep hillsides.
-Operating at high elevation, armed at @3,240' ASL (Prineville Reservoir, OR USA).
-Multiple temporary loss of GPS lock during flight.
-Temporary loss of transmitter signal during flight.
-Operating at the limit of visual and transmitter range.
-Vibration-free photography.
Sure, it's taken some brain sweat and practice to get everything working just the way I wanted, but in way less than a year the Iris+ has allowed me to go from an absolute stranger to DIY and RC flying to reliably, quickly, and safely completing autonomous reality capture missions in less than ideal conditions with confidence. Other than my motorcycle and an engagement ring, best purchase I ever made. Thanks 3DR.
Replies
Justin, thats awesome, what did you use to stitch together the images once you were done?
Matt
Recap 360 works surprisingly well as part of my quick-and-dirty process. You really have to load up on the images, better than 50% overlap and plenty of perspectives. I usually mix planimetric with slightly oblique shots for best effect, sometimes from the ground if you can avoid getting the horizon in the shot and need the detail. There is a fairly generous limit on number of photos with the intro Recap product, a number which syncs up nicely with a 10-minute flight time at 2 frames per second.
I struggled for a while on my first try with Recap and a VW van. Turns out glass and shiny surfaces are a well-known problem, so vehicles are really the last thing you want to try.
This mission was strictly training for me, but I work as a GIS consultant for urban planners and transportation engineers so creating the models has immediate applicability for work. Up to now my ability to make terrain models at the scale and resolution my clients want has been limited to various sources of free, low-res data time-intensive 3D viz, or incredible but infrequently available aerial LiDAR. Low-elevation photogrammetry fits a nice niche in there, and has a lot of other great qualities.
I'm keeping my eye out for more advances in miniaturized LiDAR. Once I can affordably mount one of those pucks on a larger hex, it's going to be a (yet another) all new ballgame.
Great stuff Justin. Great to hear another operator loving this machine.
Looks like a cool project, was this 100% work related?
-ToddH.