Big news: DroneKit-Python has just hit its next major release! 2.0 is now available via pip and Github. With 2.0, we took the time to do some major architecture changes targeting performance, extensibility, and ease of use. We have started internally testing and porting these enhancements to major projects that depend on DroneKit-Python.

Please report any bugs through Github or the DroneKit Forums. Also, please give us a shout if you are developing any projects using DroneKit-Python! We would love to hear about all the awesome projects you are working on.

Many thanks to all the people involved in creating and testing 2.0 (Sorry if we omit any!) @tcr3dr, @hamishwillee, @geeksville, @mrpollo, @will, @eliao, @djnugent, @squilter, @stephendade, @franknitty69, @mikerob, @atomictom, @jmachuca77

Changelog (edited):

New Features

• Renamed the actual package name to “dronekit” (previously droneapi)
• Dronekit now runs standalone (removed MAVProxy dependency)
• Multiple vehicle support
• MAVLink message listeners

Major Feature Updates

• local_connect refactored as a single connect() method (can connect to multiple vehicles!)
• Removed .set_mavrx_callback in favor of the new on_message callbacks
• Moved RC channels to .channels object
• Split location information into local_frame, global_frame and global_relative_frame
• Removed need for .flush() for most commands (now renamed commands.upload())
• Renamed commands.goto and commands.takeoff to simple_goto and simple_takeoff

Lots of smaller new features and changes

The full list of changes is available through the Documentation Release Notes on the DroneKit docs site.

Migrating to 2.0

A migration guide is available that covers how to fix your code if you are depending on certain features that we removed. The migration guide is also available on the DroneKit docs site, just search for Migrating to DKPY 2.0

DroneKit-Python 1.5 EOL

Finally, with the 2.0 release we would like to address 1.5 EOL. We will no longer be shipping new features on the 1.5 branch, and are expecting to end support and maintenance updates on Q1 2016. Starting Q2 2016 the DroneKit Core Team can no longer guarantee any support for 1.5.

Source: https://discuss.dronekit.io/t/dronekit-python-releases/17

We are very pleased to announce the launch of the official 3DR Development Guide for Solo. This is a huge first step in introducing developers to the 3DR platform and growing the Solo dev community! We are excited keep building out this resource and also encourage others to participate as well. As the Solo Development Guide continues evolving, so will the endless possibilities of different Solo applications.

http://dev.3dr.com/

The Solo Development Guide currently covers:

• A general overview of how Solo works

• How to Access and work with Solo's Linux distribution

• How to Upload and run Python scripts, including DroneKit-Python

• How to run services that run on boot

• Process video as it’s being streamed to and from Solo

• How to Troubleshoot Solo

Brought to you by the Solo Dev Team

We have been working hard to get Droneshare out of beta, and are pleased to share that we are almost ready to call it V1. We are wrapping up a few things including mission discovery, filtered searches, and making flight uploads easier.

Interesting milestones since our last update:

• Over 15,000 flights uploaded (a combination of public and private flights)
• Upload support is now built into Droidplanner, APM Planner and Mission Planner
• Dataflash (binary or text) logs are now supported (in addition to the original tlogs)
• Andrew Chapman’s LogAnalyzer tool is now integrated for analyzing Dataflash log files looking for common problems
• A “movie” button provides a first person visualization of flights
• Live vehicle tracking & control is now in alpha testing

Here is a sneak peek:

We have received a lot of great input on ways to improve Droneshare, thank you for your feedback! We are excited to focus on the next version. Here are some things we have in mind:

• Better plotting control and better plotting UI
• Airspace warnings
• More polished design ( possibly with better tablet integration )

Before we get started on our next version, we would love to learn more about how and why you use Droneshare, and gather your thoughts on features you would like to see. To keep everyone’s thoughts in an organized fashion, we have created a survey that will help us decide how to move forward based on your needs.

We would also like to take this opportunity to thank Mapbox and Doarama for providing us with awesome open source mapping and and visualizations that make Droneshare better.

Help us make Droneshare even better, ways to help:

• Answering our short survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1nEF3VrLQ0VdEDunWwt-GGvD1cVPWvlUefAy20lGqxUM/viewform

• Using or extending our project source code: https://github.com/diydrones/droneshare

• Found a bug? feel like a feature is missing? help us by creating a ticket: https://github.com/diydrones/droneshare/issues

• Uploading your missions Droneshare: http://www.droneshare.com/