will it allow it to go negative feet and follow me down the mountain?

Did see or read that this is not the case, active track is only for uphill
DJI ken will confirm, he never sleeps

Anoniem Posted at 2016-10-20 14:52
Did see or read that this is not the case, active track is only for uphill
DJI ken will confirm, he ...

The feature is called Terrian Following, not up-hill following. It uses the sensors on the bottom to keep a specified elevation. It does not care if you are going up or down, or up and down and up, or down and up and down. It follows the terrain, as the name of the feature implies.

You can do one thing, just start flying with the Mavic from the    lowest    point of that mountin where the finish line is.
For example it's a 500 Meter hill, you start your Mavic from the lowest point of the mountain, fly up 500m, start ActiveTrack and start Snowboarding, altitude will Read HEIGHT: 500m at that point, now when you go downhill, it won't read Minus.

As of now Terrain Follow will only automatically change the craft's altitude when going uphill. It will need a left-stick command to descend. It's very intuitive when in your hands.

DJI LA Support Posted at 2016-10-21 05:01
As of now Terrain Follow will only automatically change the craft's altitude when going uphill. It w ...

Can you hold the left stick down during terrain follow to have the Mavic automatically descend to the height you set, or do you have to control the altitude manually as you would if there were no tracking mode?

Oh, thats sad to hear. Would make more logic if it uses its bottom sensor to go up, it can also go down, since the sensor will read "higher" values, so knows it needs to go down.

Nees Posted at 2016-10-21 05:52
Oh, thats sad to hear. Would make more logic if it uses its bottom sensor to go up, it can also go d ...

It's not that the sensor can't detect that, it's more that for liability issues DJI doesn't ever want any code that tells the drone to fly down in the off chance that it gets messed up and flies right into the ground or a person.

That's why descending requires either manual stick input or RTH activation.

In theory though we should be able to descend with the left stick and the terrain follow will keep the Mavic the correct height from the ground, moving both up and down when needed, since the user is manually inputting the command for the drone to descend.

chris50 Posted at 2016-10-20 23:57
It's not that the sensor can't detect that, it's more that for liability issues DJI doesn't ever w ...

It goes down when it looses gps... read the other topic about near crash.

DJI LA Support Posted at 2016-10-20 17:01
As of now Terrain Follow will only automatically change the craft's altitude when going uphill. It w ...

so as I snowboard down the hill I can bump the altitude down manually and I wont lose the active track?

chris50 Posted at 2016-10-20 23:24
Can you hold the left stick down during terrain follow to have the Mavic automatically descend to  ...

Nice idea - I love it !

Like to see how that works (video)

Very simple.   Make sure you ski uphill.

fmskellham Posted at 2016-10-21 04:50
so as I snowboard down the hill I can bump the altitude down manually and I wont lose the active t ...

Curious about this as well.

msduncanrolltid Posted at 2016-10-21 07:56
Very simple.   Make sure you ski uphill.

guess I will have to go snowmobiling then.

Very simple, there isn't any obstacle avoidance in the back of the aircraft, so it is not possible to actively track you while going downhill as there might be trees or other objects.

hmmmm, pretty gutted it doesnt do this! was hoping to use it following me on my downhill bike!

I don't think we can really call it 'terrain following', more like 'terrain avoidance', so going uphill it will avoid the ground. Going downhill there is nothing to avoid, so no need  to descend to avoid it.

Is it not meant to stay a fixed height above the ground in terrain follow? If it is following (forwards) down a hill then obstacle avoidance should work fine surely?

a.black89 Posted at 2016-10-21 22:35
Is it not meant to stay a fixed height above the ground in terrain follow? If it is following (forwa ...

that's what I thought?

so I just watched a video and it might work snowboarding.

so based on this the terrain follow mode is a bit redundant.

Tried to go downhill with follow mode. Mavic keep his attitude stable. I would be happy if it could do same as airdog.

I'm on the fence right now between the Mavic Pro and the AirDog. My main use will be for heli skiing, and maybe wakeboarding.
If the Mavic was able to descend it would be a no brainer.

Anyone else have thoughts on this?

I purchased the mavic to take skiing to Niseko. I was surprised and really annoyed that it wouldn't decrease altitude as I descended down the mountain. Is there an email to contact support about adding this feature via a software upgrade?