New Drone from DJI- Inspire

[igor73]

So what do you all  think of this drone for photogrammetry?  The camera specs are not that detailed.  Aspherical lens with no distortion and 94 degree they claim.  Sounds good..  4k video and 12mp stills.  Burst mode and RAW images.  The drone specs seems to be way better  than the Phantom.

Camera specs

12.0MP

       
94°FOV (Field Of View)
CMOS

Sony EXMOR 1/2.3”
Lens

f/2.8 (20mm equivalent)
9 Elements in 9 groups
Aspherical lens element
Anti-distortion filter
UV filter
Still Photography Modes

Single shoot
Burst shooting (BURST: 3/5/7 frames，AEB: 3 or 5 bracketed frames at 0.7EV Bias)
Time lapse
HD Video Recording Modes

UHD (4K)：4096x2160p24/25，3840x2160p24/25/30
FHD：1920x1080p24/25/30/48/50/60
HD: 1280x720p24/25/30/48/50/60
Max Bitrate Of Video Storage

60Mbps
Supported File Formats

FAT32/exFAT
Photo: JPEG，DNG
Video: MP4/MOV (MPEG-4 AVC/H.264)

http://www.dji.com/product/inspire-1/feature

[nadar]

Nice toy !
In my view, it seems more focused on filming videos than acquiring still pictures for photogrammetric analysis.
94° FOV is quite wide, and I'm afraid about the "anti-distrortion filter" ().
Check also the type of shutter. Being mainly oriented towards video, I guess it will be an electronic "rolling" shutter, not ideal for photogrammetry.

[DaveB]

Hi, What about geo-tagging of images ? any info , or just as all the others ?

[MortarArt]

I'm personally interested in seeing how it mounts it's existing camera. It looks like that with the gimbal it weighs at least as much as an APS-C compact, but for now I'm going to stick to flying my Phantom 2 with the Samsung NX-1100.

[JohnSC]

Is there anyone using a DJI Inspire 1 with Agisoft?

If so,  does the camera geo-tag images? What is included in the telemetry file? Can you please upload a txt file?

I'm pretty sure the geo-tagged images can be achieved with the read only level one SDK, and most certainly level two SDK. I just wasn't sure if this was possible with factory settings. Perhaps i don't need to worry about geo-tagged images since scaling can be done with markers too.

Also, if you are using Inspire 1 with Agisoft, how do you like it? Would you recommend it? I was thinking of going with 3DR X8+ instead of Inspire 1. Two totally different beasts, i know :-)

Thanks for reading!

[MortarArt]

JohnSC, both of those aircraft might be overkill, especially if this is your first entry into the field. I started out with the Phantom 2 and the latest iterations of it are capable of carrying 28mpx, aps-c cameras.

[igor73]

Have an Inspire 1 now.  How done only one project yet but the results where very good in my opinion.  The lens is a non fish eye 20mm equivalent and  has quite good  distortion performance.  Link to the project below has 120 images and another 70 images with a D800 focusing only on the rock art on the big stone. Obviously i have to limit the mesh polly count and texture size for Sketchfab.  Only 8k texture and heavily decimated mesh on sketchfab.  Original mesh is 16K texture and 10 million polygons that i use for rendering.

It was a very windy day. No wind and the grass would have been perfect to.   Agisoft handled aligning the D800 chunk with the Drone chunk with out problem.  Quite excited about that.  Did some mesh editing in Zbrush and also generated the UV in Zbrush.  Texture edited in photoshop. I think the camera is good enough as using a drone you will shoot from a distance for larger areas.  I had no need for geo referencing on this project. 

For filming this drone is incredible.  The video is super crisp and super smooth with the gimbal. 

As been mentioned above Inspire 1  might be overkill though.  Phantom 2 with a good camera will get you great results for photogrammetry.  But if you also want to film the Inspire 1 is very interesting. 

https://sketchfab.com/models/c27bd1fc43b848a0a7b30dc4187d5001

[igor73]

Some info on GPS data here  http://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=6764

[SuperNewb]

Inspire is working well for my projects so far.  Initially there were issues with the geo-tags clumping up and giving multiple photos the same information.  That has been fixed for awhile now.  I just finished a short video showing off a stockpile that was captured during a single flight for volume estimation.  2 scale bars were used with an extra laid down to test accuracy.  Scale bars were 15m long and test bar was a small piece of lumber I had lying around.  The estimated length of the lumber was 5mm off of the actual length.

 Here is a link to the video.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sl465a5swp6xnqv/Volume%20Estimate%20Demo.mp4?dl=0

[chumager3]

Hello, great video. which use software to do it?

[bigben]

... and then came the Phantom 3 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jJn7uvqgc0

[mrb]

... and then came the Phantom 3 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jJn7uvqgc0

I find the Phantom 3 to be really underwhelming, from what I've seen.  They're now forcing you to use their proprietary camera, no more option for GoPro or other camera mount.  It's a shame for the consumer, but of course it makes sense for DJI from a business standpoint....

[SuperNewb]

Hello, great video. which use software to do it?

Photoscan to Modo to Premiere

[MortarArt]

... and then came the Phantom 3 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jJn7uvqgc0

I find the Phantom 3 to be really underwhelming, from what I've seen.  They're now forcing you to use their proprietary camera, no more option for GoPro or other camera mount.  It's a shame for the consumer, but of course it makes sense for DJI from a business standpoint....

Exactly my thoughts, although I wonder if it will be possible to hijack their lightbridge connections, as it was with the Vision+'s FPV. For now, the best option seems to be, to buy a P2v2 (with the upgraded motors and props), and to stick a small compact on it, like the rx-100, Ricoh GR, or if you're brave, the NX-500.

[mrb]

... and then came the Phantom 3 ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7jJn7uvqgc0

I find the Phantom 3 to be really underwhelming, from what I've seen.  They're now forcing you to use their proprietary camera, no more option for GoPro or other camera mount.  It's a shame for the consumer, but of course it makes sense for DJI from a business standpoint....

Exactly my thoughts, although I wonder if it will be possible to hijack their lightbridge connections, as it was with the Vision+'s FPV. For now, the best option seems to be, to buy a P2v2 (with the upgraded motors and props), and to stick a small compact on it, like the rx-100, Ricoh GR, or if you're brave, the NX-500.

I agree.  I just got a NEX-5, with mounting it on a P2 in mind. It's such a handy little camera though, I don't think I have the heart to endanger it... haha

Ricoh GR would be ideal in my mind... shame they're discontinued and still relatively expensive.