Hi,
I've been working on an iPad app for the Inspire 1 that allows you to create 360 panoramas from the air. You can see a couple of recent flights here:

http://www.unmannedairlines.com/dev/panoramas/caliterra/section4.html

http://www.unmannedairlines.com/dev/panoramas/porta/index.html

The second link was of the Port Aransas, TX skatepark and turned out really well. If you look close there are a few minor stitching issues, but I'm impressed with the results so far. I plan on publishing this app in the App Store for free. The I1 is a great platform for aerial panoramas and I wanted to see if there is anyone here that would be interested in helping beta test. If so, please shoot me an email at db at unmannedairlines dot com. I'm sharing my email because I'm not familiar with the PM capabilities of this forum and given all the recent changes I feel it will be easier to communicate directly.

The panoramas above were created with PTGui, but any panorama software should work.

Thanks,
Dennis

I'd be interested.

Tried to send you an email but it got kicked back.

Edit: I just noticed I left a character out of your email address.  Sent the email again to the correct address.

Looks pretty awesome! World it work together with a P3 Pro?

I'd love to test out!

Works well!

I would love to try this out, I have used photosynth for simple handheld shots but never thought to try with the inspire

I am curious about which bush the pilot was hiding behind? I looked pretty hard and could not find anyone, at least looking like they were flying a quad.

Having never done an aerial pano before I wonder if it presents its own challenge in masking out the photographer. On land based panos it is easy as you just stay behind the camera as you shoot.

remltr Posted at 2015-7-30 07:34
I am curious about which bush the pilot was hiding behind?  I looked pretty hard and could not fin ...

Easy! Be directly underneath the UAV.

Email sent - interesting to see the app and it's development.
I've had some success with manually capturing and stitching images from the I1 in Hugin. Some automation to the capture process would be great.

Although the gimbal isn't setup for capturing panos, the usually far distance from subject will usually minimise stitching issues. I use a macro slide and tripod when shooting panos using a DSLR so as to get the pivot point correct.

Yes, I'd be glad to Beta Test for you. me email is daniel@skysightfilms,com. Looking forward to it,
-Daniel

Guys, we appreciate the interest in the app. Right now we're waiting on Apple to approve the app for beta testing. My apologies for the delay as we were originally think we'd distribute the app to beta testers Ad Hoc. This turned out to be cumbersome so we'll be using TestFlight to do this. I will add all of you to the beta and you'll get a notification when ready. Also, we wanted to address some of the questions that have been asked from other testers and have shared them here:

http://www.unmannedairlines.com/2015/07/dji-inspire-1-panorama-beta-app-questions-and-feedback/

If you have any additional questions please post them in this thread and we'll be sure to follow up.

Thanks,
Dennis

Hey Dennis, I'd love to be a beta tester for this. How would I get in contact with you? I'm still learning how to use this forum.

Goodwill Posted at 2015-7-31 01:09
Hey Dennis, I'd love to be a beta tester for this. How would I get in contact with you? I'm still le ...

I hear you. You should see the other DJI SDK forum. It's a nightmare! In my original post above I put my email: db at unmannedairlines dot com. Just shoot me a message there and we'll get you added. Thanks.

unmannedairline Posted at 2015-7-31 00:56
Guys, we appreciate the interest in the app. Right now we're waiting on Apple to approve the app for ...

Hi,

I would like to be a betatester, too. I created my panoramas mostly out of video-images.

If you've sent me an email then we've added you to the beta and you should be receiving an invite soon. If you haven't heard from us then we don't have your email. See my original post for how to get on the beta. Thanks.

I am interested in being a beta tester! Luke_Boney@yahoo.com

luke.boney.corg Posted at 2015-8-1 04:17
I am interested in being a beta tester!

Thanks, Luke. We'll get you added to the beta shortly. We're pushing a new update today and you should get notice when it's ready.

luke.boney.corg Posted at 2015-8-1 04:17
I am interested in being a beta tester!

Luke you should have received an invite to help beta test. Let us know if you didn't. Thanks.

Anybody know of a website that has a pano viewer where pano images can be posted? Hopefully free as I spent all my money on the I1 and smart power charger. I'm just a poor boy.

remltr Posted at 2015-8-2 07:46
Anybody know of a website that has a pano viewer where pano images can be posted? Hopefully free as  ...

@remltr post your images in a dropbox folder (or whatever you prefer) and send me the link. We'll be happy to process the images for you and host them for the time being. We're looking into the ability to stitch these in the cloud and then provide hosted panos that you can embed wherever you want.

Just in case anyone is interested, I found a website that offers up paid as well as free accounts for posting equirectangular images.

www.360cities.net

Hi Dennis,

Finally had an opportunity to go out and fly today (weather has not been great!) and put the pano app through it's paces.
Firstly, just a note to say thanks - you've put some effort into it and it does make capture of images for panoramas easier.

It worked as expected as I captured images at 3-4 locations.
No issues with missed images, all were captured as expected.
I definitely like having the battery level updated on the app screen - today was extremely windy and cloudy and the Inspire was chewing through batteries, just holding position!

Can I suggest some tweaks that would make it really convenient (at least in my usage that is!)

It would be great to be able to select a one row, two row or three row capture. That would avoid the pilot manually cancelling the procedure if they only want the mid section captured.
It would also be great to be able to set a desired field of view for capture, rather than the full 360 each time.
finally (and this is probably a biggy) but can we get access to the exposure settings? Heavy cloud was a problem for me today - it would be great to be able to adjust settings in app.

Some samples - just raw out of hugin, haven't cleaned them up yet

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-8-2 18:50
Hi Dennis,

Finally had an opportunity to go out and fly today (weather has not been great!) and put ...

How much control are you looking for with the exposure? If is just the shutter speed, you can control that with the right wheel.

I have asked for access to the histogram and over exposure warning myself.

I set my exposure in pilot app and then switch to DroneControl. Once set I would not change exposure until the set is done anyway.

Here is one I did yesterday. Stitiched in PtGui and masked myself and the Inspire parts in Photoshop.

https://www.360cities.net/image/radio-aero-modelers-seattle-flying-field

Another one I did at the same location at a much higher altitude did not stitch cleanly right out of the box. Harder to get control points when detail is not clearly visible. I did not want to work that hard to make it work. There is a lot of work when you have 48 images if control points are lacking.

EDIT: I removed the original pano I linked to and replaced it with a different pano.

I'd prefer not to have to swap between apps to manage exposure settings - changing with right wheel is a bit hit or miss. (laggy and often found myself going too bright or dark at times)

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-8-2 18:50
Hi Dennis,

Finally had an opportunity to go out and fly today (weather has not been great!) and put ...

Those panos turned out really nice! Good job. Regarding your feedback:

1. We'll look into adding the ability to capture a single row of photos

2. We'll look into being able to specify a FOV but that may have to come in a later version as we're dealing with some more pressing bugs

3. Regarding exposure settings our fear was that we end up reproducing what DJI has already done well in the Pilot app. If you and some of the forum members can specify what parameters you're looking to adjust we can surely look into it.

Thanks for the feedback and keep the panos coming!

remltr Posted at 2015-8-2 19:52
How much control are you looking for with the exposure? If is just the shutter speed, you can contr ...

Wow remltr that is probably one of the best panos we've seen! Nice job. Regarding the 48 images, we've received feedback from several user saying that a 30 degree interval is too much and we need to lessen it to 60 degrees. So instead of 12 photos per row we'd be taking 6. I'm not sure how I feel about this, but we're doing some testing. Perhaps you could run that pano again with every other photo removed from the upload. Then you'd basically simulate what I was suggesting above (a photo at every 60 degrees). We're interested in knowing if that complicates the matching process, but given the I1 camera has a decent FOV there should be enough overlap.

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-8-2 20:17
I'd prefer not to have to swap between apps to manage exposure settings - changing with right wheel  ...

Yeah unfortunately the SDK FPV view is very laggy. DJI is aware of this and hopefully they'll do something about it. One thing we could do is at least display the shutter speed from your wheel on the top of the screen with the other parameters. So even though you have some lag in the video update you'd be able to at least see the setting. If users feel that adjusting shutter speed is a good starting place for us to given exposure control then we can definitely add the ability to display it when controlled from the right wheel. Thanks for the feedback!

unmannedairline Posted at 2015-8-3 20:20
Wow remltr that is probably one of the best panos we've seen! Nice job. Regarding the 48 images, w ...

Thanks for compliment.

I did as you asked and only used the odd numbered images and the pano stitched perfectly.

remltr Posted at 2015-8-3 22:42
Thanks for compliment.

I did as you asked and only used the odd numbered images and the pano s ...

I tested the same earlier this AM and noticed good results as well. That means we can cut the in-air time in half, but I want to do some more testing before we do. I appreciate you verifying that.

Hi Dennis,

Did some more testing today, following the recent firmware/DJI app update.
The capture operation was fine, just as before.

What did change however was that once I finished with your app and restarted the DJI GO app, I was unable to get any app connectivity video feed or telemetry.
RC control was fine, so I landed immediately.

It took a R/C and A/C and DJI GO app restart before normal operations were regained.

Thanks

F

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-8-8 14:33
Hi Dennis,

Did some more testing today, following the recent firmware/DJI app update.

Farnk are you using an iPad? I am and I had an issue when I was in Drone Pan and pressed the C2 button on the RC (reset) as a test.

I received a notification that the DJI GO app wanted to come to the front. I acknowledged it and when it came to the front there was no video. I pressed the home button and went back to the iPad screen and reselected the DJI GO app and got video back immediately.

I notified Dennis of this via email and he responded that he experienced the same as it working on it.

iPad mini 2

PaulKerry Posted at 2015-8-8 20:18
Had a quick look at your site and the panorama views... Very nice...

FYI: Typo alert.

You're right, Paul. Thanks for pointing that and we've corrected the typo. Be on the lookout for a new app update today or tomorrow.

Farnk666 Posted at 2015-8-8 14:33
Hi Dennis,

Did some more testing today, following the recent firmware/DJI app update.

Sorry about that. We've had intermittent issues with being able to switch between DronePan and the Go app. We're doing what is documented by the DJI SDK, but will continue to test and see what we can do to improve the consistency. Many thanks for the feedback.

remltr Posted at 2015-8-8 19:13
Farnk are you using an iPad? I am and I had an issue when I was in Drone Pan and pressed the C2 bu ...

Thanks for walking through that use-case. Very interesting. We have no update on the C buttons just yet, but hopefully we can come up with something!

unmannedairline Posted at 2015-8-8 22:40
Sorry about that. We've had intermittent issues with being able to switch between DronePan and the ...

Nothing to be sorry about mate, that's what beta testing is all about!

http://getpano.com/pano/air/weingarten/

Oleg Prylutskyi Posted at 2015-8-10 02:08
http://getpano.com/pano/air/weingarten/

Nice...

If this was done with the Inspire 1, mind explaining how you did the sky?

Oleg Prylutskyi Posted at 2015-8-10 02:08
http://getpano.com/pano/air/weingarten/

Awesome! How did you get the full 90 degrees up to the sky?

I would love to see this available for the Phantom 3 - Is there a way to be notified of future plans for this? I'd be happy to beta test on my P3 Professional.

Currently with the Phantom 3, you have to guess on your angles and wait for the aircraft to stabilize in the position before hitting the shutter - often resulting in blurry images. It would be great to have an automated way to yaw the aircraft x degrees, stabilize, snap a photo, repeat.

I'd be interested in beta testing this for you, shoot me an email at:  pa.hug2012@gmail.com

All the best