Hi,

I have noticed that performance of MA2 in Point of Interest mode is very unsatisfactory.
The drone has a strong tendency of loosing the object it is supposed to circle and its circle trajectory is uneven.

I noticed it on older version of firmware and with most recent firmware as well.

Here is a short video illustrating what I am talking about.
To illustrate how bad it is, I have chosen a big, stationary, red canoe, sitting on a small island surrounded by blue waters. Becasue of the contrast between canoe and its surroundings MA2 focus and circle should be perfect.

See the results for yourself and let me know if you have similar problems.



Mirek

Any ideas if this is normal bad implementation of POI in MA2 or we are seeing some other potential problem here?

Mirek

I noticed that also.. It took a few tries to lock in on an object for me

I don't believe that in POI mode the object of interest is guaranteed to remain in the center (as assumed by the OP).   I have have seen the same performance as shown here for ages with my Mavic.

WolfgangStiller Posted at 7-9 09:54
I don't believe that in POI mode the object of interest is guaranteed to remain in the center (as assumed by the OP).   I have have seen the same performance as shown here for ages with my Mavic.

Thank you Wolfgang,

This is very strange but encouraging in the sense that it may be deficiency of POI algorithm rather than problem with my MA2. (in other words, instead of returning MA2 to DJI to fix, we can simply ask them to look into their algorithms and fix the issue).

However, there is one more thing which I noticed which probably points to a bug in POI algorithm. I start POI by drawing green rectangle around object to track.
It stays there for a bit with the object and than rectangle becomes a small dashlined square which starts moving away from the tracked object (staying somewhat closer to the center of the screen).

This leads me to believe that intended behaviour is to keep the tracked object as close to the center of the screen as possible but MA2 simply loses the object to track.

I will do more experiments to confirm my suspitions (I will record the screen view so DJI data and tracking will be visible).

In addition to all this, it seems that MA2 track around stationary tracked object is uneven. This is very bad for any cinematographic footage since any uneven path immediately gets noticed by the viewer and takes her attention away from the video and to the irregular MA2 behaviour.

Anybody else out there wishing to add their experiences with POI?

MIrek  

Hi. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused. With regard to this concern. During the FocusTrack POI is the DJI Fly application still showing that the drone still locked on the Canoe? Kindly please post a sample video footage from DJI Fly  application showing this issue for better assistance. Please try flying the drone in a different location the water reflection may affect the performance off the said drone during the said FocusTrack. Please refer to the image below for more information about FocusTrack. Please  keep us posted for better assistance. Thank you.

I was quite impressed with how well POI 3 worked. Here's an unedited clip straight out of the drone where the point of interested selected is the largest tower with the flag pole. It is kept quite centralised throughout. So I havent had similar problems but just wishing to add my experience with POI on the MA2.

Chill Pill Posted at 7-10 03:18
I was quite impressed with how well POI 3 worked. Here's an unedited clip straight out of the drone where the point of interested selected is the largest tower with the flag pole. It is kept quite centralised throughout. So I havent had similar problems but just wishing to add my experience with POI on the MA2.

MA2 PO I3

Chilli Pill,

Out of curiosity. Do you remember if during this POI flight, your point of interest was surrounded by a green rectangle you drew around it at the beginning or did it change into a small green square with dotted border and a pin inside?

Mirek

DJI Paladin Posted at 7-9 21:58
Hi. I am sorry for the trouble this has caused. With regard to this concern. During the FocusTrack POI is the DJI Fly application still showing that the drone still locked on the Canoe? Kindly please post a sample video footage from DJI Fly  application showing this issue for better assistance. Please try flying the drone in a different location the water reflection may affect the performance off the said drone during the said FocusTrack. Please refer to the image below for more information about FocusTrack. Please  keep us posted for better assistance. Thank you.

DJI Palladin,

The focus drifted off the canoe into the lake and a focus rectangle changed into a small green square with dotted borders and a pin inside. MA2 definitely lost focus on canoe.

I was experimenting with POI a bit more yesterday over land. The bahaviour of my MA2 was erratic. Sometimes tracking was just fine (with subject staying in the center surrounded by green rectangle) and sometimes it was drifting with some weird and false messages appearing on my DJI Fly app.
When I tried Spotlight and follow the subject, my MA2 started to behave extremelly erraticaly (not listening to my stick commands, startinga and stopping, shaking in mid air etc). On top of that, the log file for the worst flight is missing.

I will reflash my firmware today, recalibrate my sensors and do more testing. Something is wrong with the way my MA2 behaves.

Mirek

Mirek L Posted at 7-9 09:24
Any ideas if this is normal bad implementation of POI in MA2 or we are seeing some other potential problem here?

Mirek

Thank you!!!
Very well observed.
It's a shame, really!      

Mirek L Posted at 7-9 11:19
Thank you Wolfgang,

This is very strange but encouraging in the sense that it may be deficiency of POI algorithm rather than problem with my MA2. (in other words, instead of returning MA2 to DJI to fix, we can simply ask them to look into their algorithms and fix the issue).

You're right.
Actually not useable!!!

Mirek L Posted at 7-10 05:06
DJI Palladin,

The focus drifted off the canoe into the lake and a focus rectangle changed into a small green square with dotted borders and a pin inside. MA2 definitely lost focus on canoe.

Thank you for the additional information and sharing your personal insights regarding this matter. I am sorry to know that the issue still persists after completing this troubleshooting step. With regards to this concern. I will forward this matter to our designated DJI support team for further attention. Thank you.

DJI Paladin Posted at 7-12 22:02
Thank you for the additional information and sharing your personal insights regarding this matter. I am sorry to know that the issue still persists after completing this troubleshooting step. With regards to this concern. I will forward this matter to our designated DJI support team for further attention. Thank you.

DJI Palladin,

I have couple of additional questions.
I reflashed my firmware, callibrated all sensors and retested tracking modes in MA2.

Question 1:
It seems that MA2 can focus well on people and on cars but may have an issue with focusing on other objects. When I draw a green rectangle around an object other than person or a car, when I start POI mode, the green rectangle quickly shrinks to a small dotted line square with a pin inside. This focus point has issues with staying on the obejct I selected - sometimes it does, sometimes it drifts away. Is it normal? Or should I expect that a solid green rectangle should stay drawn around the object I have chosen.

Question 2:
When I use Spotlight mode and focus on a person, MA2 can keep focus quite well. However, when I start flying MA2 while it is in Spotlight mode, its behaviour is strange. For example, if I follow the person in Spotlight mode (I am actively directing MA 2 to fly behind the person) MA2 appears to fight me. It feels like internal MA2 algorithms are fighting my stick movements. MA2 starts to jerk violently, start and stop. Its flight is not smooth. Yes - it will eventually follow the person and listen to my sticks but the flight path is extremelly jerky. I checked the footage of such flight and, fortunately, gimbal can keep up quite well with the MA2 jerks and jumps so the footage is smooth.
Is such jerking and jumping normal when actively following a person in Spotlight mode?

Mirek

Mirek L Posted at 7-13 07:32
DJI Palladin,

I have couple of additional questions.

I find using the new target scanning feature works really well.

Mirek L Posted at 7-10 04:56
Chilli Pill,

Out of curiosity. Do you remember if during this POI flight, your point of interest was surrounded by a green rectangle you drew around it at the beginning or did it change into a small green square with dotted border and a pin inside?

This is one of many reasons I always like to run a screen recorder while in the air. Here's a "Spotlight" using a location pin for the POF and flight stick control. As you can see the POF will jump around slightly as GPS sat data is updated, but I don't really notice POF changing in the finished video. I gotta say "Spotlight" and manually circling seems to produce a better result than the "POI" example from the OP.
On screen tracking starts at 2:09

Pappy3 Posted at 7-13 08:14
This is one of many reasons I always like to run a screen recorder while in the air. Here's a "Spotlight" using a location pin for the POF and flight stick control. As you can see the POF will jump around slightly as GPS sat data is updated, but I don't really notice POF changing in the finished video. I gotta say "Spotlight" and manually circling seems to produce a better result than the "POI" example from the OP.
On screen tracking starts at 2:09
https://youtu.be/J4GsTj8jAAg?t=129

Thanks Pappy3,

Very interesting analysis.
Your green rectangle also changed very quickly to dotted square with pin, while your MA2 still was focused on the church. I guess this is expected behaviour.

It is interested to see that you were able to get away from the church focus to trees with no issues. Later, when you were flying in the direction of the church over the trees with focus on trees, MA2 jumped focus seemlessly on church roof. This is also interesting. It did not force keeping it on trees but just slided over.
Either it remembered your original focus and was happy to get it back, or the focus algorithms of MA2 (if not focused on person or car) are weak and can be easily overriden.

I found that MA2 has problems with tree focus. Perhaps tree patterns are hard for its sensors, so it slides easily from a tree to a different objects surrounding it.
But I also found that when patterns are more pronounced (like your church roof) it will slightly slide over them but may keep overall object in sight no matter what you do with sticks.

When time allows I will repeat my experiments with canoe. The results of canoe focus were very poor (my first post in this thread) but perhaps my sensors needed recalibration.  I would expect the same results with a bright red canoe which was contrasty against the water, as you got with the church roof. But your experiment was also slightly different than mine since you were actively flying your drone while I was in fully automatic POI.

Thanks for your video. I know better now what to expect.

Mirek

I have done a lot of tracking moving boats and it often loses focus on the object if the water is rougher or moving. Sometimes it works perfectly and other times it is nearly disastrous.


Also, there is another forum topic that discussed this. The operator's drone was focused on a motorcycle parked on pavement and the drone did not preform well when it started to "see" the motorcycle from the front. In the manual it says to avoid targets that can change shape dramatically as the drone rotates around (long and narrow, like the canoe?)

GaryDoug Posted at 7-13 19:19
I have done a lot of tracking moving boats and it often loses focus on the object if the water is rougher or moving. Sometimes it works perfectly and other times it is nearly disastrous.

Thank you GaryDoug,

This is very useful information. Manual recommends to track people, vehicles and boats only. This may explain haphazard performance with other objects I tested (people and car tracking was fine).
Canoe is a type of boat I guess, but perhaps DJI did not optimize for canoes :-).

In my case the canoe was very different than everything around - it was distinctly red. I would expect that MA2 should not have any issues with it, shape changing or not. But - who knows.

I will retest next time I had a chance. I did calibrate my sensors so, perhaps, it will be better now.

But your mention about random tracking of boats does not give me much hope :-).

Mirek