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99 Way Point Limit (3D Map Area Mission)
14611 27 2017-5-25
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Aerial Scout
New
Flight distance : 11923 ft

Canada
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Hello:

The first iteration of the Ground Station Pro App is great; we appreciate that you have designed it. I do have a question about perceived limitations:

Step 3 on page 8 of the GS Pro User Manual states that "There are two methods to set Virtual Fence boundaries, 3D Map Area or Flight Waypoints. Up to 99 waypoints can be set for a Waypoint mission, and there is no limit for other missions."

When attempting to fly 3D Map Area missions, we were limited to 99 waypoints. Am I doing something incorretly? We want to fly large acreages that could potentially have hundredes of waypoints.

Thanks for your help with this.


Adam
2017-5-25
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Pete Whitridge
lvl.1
Canada
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I have the same question; I was able to construct a mission with around 250 waypoints but when I tried to fly it found I had to bump it down to 99.
2017-5-30
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Pete Whitridge
lvl.1
Canada
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Think I found the answer on the DJI GO FAQ: 10. How many waypoints can be set for mapping? You can set from 2 to 99 waypoints. There may be more than 99 photo capture points if the aircraft captures without hovering. The maximum number of photo capture points depends on the capacity of the SD card.
2017-5-31
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Pete Whitridge
lvl.1
Canada
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So, theoretically, as long as you're not in Hover & Capture mode you can exceed 99 waypoints.
2017-5-31
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Beard
lvl.1
Flight distance : 28871 ft

United States
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Not exactly, with the 3D map areas the ends of each transect become the waypoints. You are still limited to 99. A waypoint is the point at where one of the flight parameters change...eg. altitude, speed, heading, take a photo, etc. So essentially, by not hovering to capture, you are traversing from one waypoint to the next....taking photos along the way. More DJI mis-represenation.
2017-6-7
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pijemcolu
New

Denmark
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Beard Posted at 2017-6-7 04:31
Not exactly, with the 3D map areas the ends of each transect become the waypoints. You are still limited to 99. A waypoint is the point at where one of the flight parameters change...eg. altitude, speed, heading, take a photo, etc. So essentially, by not hovering to capture, you are traversing from one waypoint to the next....taking photos along the way. More DJI mis-represenation.

That is correct although by disabling hovering, you do get rid of a big number of waypoints. Depends on what shape you are mapping, but if you do stick to a rectangle, which might as well be the case if you are capturing big areas the waypoint limit becomes less of a problem. Not to mention the battery.

I can't fly my drone as of now, and so I am simply looking at this and browsing how to go about the waypoint limit. Did you guys try to disable hovering? How was the image quality?
2017-6-19
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TheDroneKing
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Flight distance : 37648 ft
Finland
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pijemcolu Posted at 2017-6-19 00:20
That is correct although by disabling hovering, you do get rid of a big number of waypoints. Depends on what shape you are mapping, but if you do stick to a rectangle, which might as well be the case if you are capturing big areas the waypoint limit becomes less of a problem. Not to mention the battery.

I can't fly my drone as of now, and so I am simply looking at this and browsing how to go about the waypoint limit. Did you guys try to disable hovering? How was the image quality?

We are trying to capture a forest area and had this limitation of the 99 waypoints in the hover and capture mode. The image quality in the hover and capture mode is certainly better that the time-stop or distance-stop mode but then the area you can capture becomes too less. You should try to create your 3D models with the continuous shooting mode and see if the results are reasonable.
2017-7-20
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SilkyMilky
lvl.1
Flight distance : 7070 ft
United States
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You could also consider the Map Pilot app.  GSP is a great app, but is a little limited in some ways.   Map Pilot is a very good flight planner that allows you to slow the speed of the aircraft before or during a mission, where its a bit harder to do so in GSP.   I think it costs ~$10 (usd), but it's worth it if you need more control.   However if you're flying anything other than a stock DJI platform, it likely won't work for you.  
2017-7-20
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Stevie GooGs
lvl.3
Flight distance : 7468868 ft
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United Kingdom
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I have a similar issue, was gutted to be honest as i pre planned my flight and got to the location, completely off grid and was like 99points i was over 250 so i had to make the area much smaller which became a test nothing more.  I would be willing to pay extra for this feature if it could increase the waypoint limit as so far the GSP is the best software i have used to do this type of drone work.  To be able to change exposure as you fly to make adjustments for cloud / sun helps a lot.
I am going to have to go back and try the area with flying and capturing, but really not sure how well the quality will be as the shutter will have to be a lot higher and it can be pretty low light in the highlands in the cloud, not ideal.
2017-9-17
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DJI-Mark
First Officer

United States
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It is about the capacity of the SD card. Unfortunately, you would not be able to go past 99 points.
2017-9-19
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Beard
lvl.1
Flight distance : 28871 ft

United States
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DJI-Mark, I really have a hard time believing that the SD card is the reason for the 99 point limit. This is tabular data not raster data....very small file size. Probably no more than a "table" containing coordinates along with the flight parameters. You might could rationalize this explanation this, if for instance, the waypoint limit was 5000. Please correct me if my logic is incorrect.
2017-9-20
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DJI-Mark
First Officer

United States
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Beard Posted at 2017-9-20 07:44
DJI-Mark, I really have a hard time believing that the SD card is the reason for the 99 point limit. This is tabular data not raster data....very small file size. Probably no more than a "table" containing coordinates along with the flight parameters. You might could rationalize this explanation this, if for instance, the waypoint limit was 5000. Please correct me if my logic is incorrect.

Please review the FAQ on the Ground Station Pro Systems. It does talk about that here: https://www.dji.com/ground-station-pro/info
2017-9-20
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drbuckingham
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United States
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It has nothing to do with the capacity of the SD card.  I have taken over 200+ pictures (in a single mission) on a 64GB SD card and it still only used about 5.3GB of that card.  The 99 waypoint limit does not relate to the number of pictures taken in a single mission.  The 99 waypoint limit is likely imposed in the flight controller firmware.
2017-9-20
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fansde9009aa
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Netherlands
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drbuckingham Posted at 2017-9-20 14:36
It has nothing to do with the capacity of the SD card.  I have taken over 200+ pictures (in a single mission) on a 64GB SD card and it still only used about 5.3GB of that card.  The 99 waypoint limit does not relate to the number of pictures taken in a single mission.  The 99 waypoint limit is likely imposed in the flight controller firmware.

Agree. Come on, DJI-Mark, 99 points for a SD card of 64G is not the problem.. Please fix this, because we need more than 99 waypoints. Not using hover&capture makes the pictures blurry and useless. Help!
2017-12-19
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dewarp
New

New Zealand
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We've just hit this issue too.  

What I have found particularly frustrating is that there are no alerts about the point limit while setting up the mission (in the office).  It's only once you go to start mission that you are alerted of the limit.  This means that any changes to the imported flight mission require either lengthy (and fiddly) edits in the field, or a call back to the office to update the import files.

I fully support a fix to this.

Cheers
Phil
2018-1-30
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eColumbia01
Second Officer
United States
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The 99 waypoint limit is an artificial limit due to how DJI has set up their system. The work around is to create two or more waypoint missions each of which has up to 99 waypoints and then run each waypoint mission one after the other.  
2018-2-2
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Hexacopter
Second Officer

Australia
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If one inspects the code then dji's option was to set 256 waypoints with 16 bits pointing to the table, one bit more gives 512 and another bit gives 1024 etc. 4 bytes of data would give the traditional 65,536 number. Not so hard dji (although  it would be a PITA to program 64k waypoints) - Maybe dji are limiting the waypoints to what is achievable with a standard battery although this does not allow for the option of landing and replacing the battery and resuming the flight from the last waypoint recorded.

* hex *  
2018-2-2
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Superik
lvl.3
Flight distance : 184058 ft
France
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Hexacopter Posted at 2018-2-2 23:57
If one inspects the code then dji's option was to set 256 waypoints with 16 bits pointing to the table, one bit more gives 512 and another bit gives 1024 etc. 4 bytes of data would give the traditional 65,536 number. Not so hard dji (although  it would be a PITA to program 64k waypoints)  - Maybe dji are limiting the waypoints to what is achievable with a standard battery although this does not allow for the option of landing and replacing the battery and resuming the flight from the last waypoint recorded.

* hex *

hello,
in the FAQ, the 99 waypoint limit is in hover mode and there is a warning about the SD card size.
If I manually capture in dng & jpg, the size of 99 photos will be 4.1 GB (34 MB per dng and 7.2 MB per jpg), so the SD card isn't a problem (I use 32 and 64 GB memories).
The other point is hover mode. As fansde9009aa has writen, if we do not use hover mode, the photo will be blurry ...

Maybe this limitation has been done to not compete with other commercial apps ?

Have you ever tried to assemble 2 set of photo (2 x 99 photos, from 2 fly missions), for an orthophoto map ? Is it ok ?


Eric
2018-2-18
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fansb8b222f3
Second Officer
Flight distance : 74213 ft
Sweden
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Hi , this was also reported by me earlier ( a year ago)
What strikes me is , no matter how much money you spend on a drone you (we) are still limited to the 99 waypoint. THIS goes all over the product line and is the first negative experience for many users.
2018-7-17
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666mille
lvl.1
Germany
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Yes this is a negative experience. In our setup we have a third party camera (sony Alpha 7R) and the pictures are not written on the SD-Card. Please fix it.....because this is a great app! An android version would be great, too!
2018-7-18
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fansb8b222f3
Second Officer
Flight distance : 74213 ft
Sweden
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666mille Posted at 2018-7-18 23:33
Yes this is a negative experience. In our setup we have a third party camera (sony Alpha 7R) and the pictures are not written on the SD-Card. Please fix it.....because this is a great app! An android version would be great, too!

DJI can you please provide some information on when we can have this limitation fixed.

2018-7-19
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jojo-MavicPro
Second Officer
Flight distance : 74213 ft
Italy
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Friendly bump! Can we get some answers from DJI here would be great. Whats the current status of increasing this limitation?
2018-7-30
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666mille
lvl.1
Germany
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Still no update........?
2018-9-5
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Philip Hilven
lvl.1
Flight distance : 307749 ft
Belgium
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It's still there
2018-9-18
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JustJoshin
lvl.1
United Kingdom
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I encountered this problem of 99 waypoints yesterday for the first time. I decided to go ahead and start the flight.

After the 99 waypoints have been completed, you can resume the flight operation while still in the air and in a matter of 15-30 seconds, can resume the flight with the next 99 waypoints loaded. It doesn't really hinder the whole thing that much.

The only thing you need to be aware of is that it won't let you resume the operation if the drone is positioned where the last waypoint was, so you need to fly a couple of meters away - only then can you resume the project where you left off.

Not the best solution but a workable one.
2022-4-27
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patiam
Captain
Flight distance : 1093865 ft
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United States
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JustJoshin Posted at 4-27 05:53
I encountered this problem of 99 waypoints yesterday for the first time. I decided to go ahead and start the flight.

After the 99 waypoints have been completed, you can resume the flight operation while still in the air and in a matter of 15-30 seconds, can resume the flight with the next 99 waypoints loaded. It doesn't really hinder the whole thing that much.

^THIS

It's still a nonsensical and indefensible limit,  but not a game-ender.
2022-4-28
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xsadaex
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Spain
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It's still there. Why is not possible to load a .KML file with more than 99 points? We are not in the 90's to have this kind of limit.
2022-9-16
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patiam
Captain
Flight distance : 1093865 ft
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United States
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Agreed, this limit is ridiculous, as is the overall route length limit.
2022-9-17
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