Motion Blur (also known as Ground Smear)
As of version 1.4.0 of Map Pilot, the flight statistics panel has a item in it called "Motion Blur". The Motion Blur indicator shows how far the aircraft is traveling while the camera is exposing.
All motion that occurs while the camera is exposing will be captured by the camera's pixels. If the size of the motion is bigger than the Ground Sample Distance (GSD) of the data being collected, it will start to look like the image is smeared. Smeared imagery will lead to poor mapping results.
The motion blur indicator is generated by multiplying the exposure time by the speed. If the camera has a 1/100s exposure time (.01 seconds) and the aircraft is traveling at 10 m/s the ground smear is going to be 10 cm (.1 meters).
The coloring of the Motion Blur indicator number is grey (normal) when the value is less than the selected GSD. The number will turn yellow when the ground smear is between 1X and 2X your GSD. This indicates that there is smearing happening but it is likely within usable thresholds. The number turns red when the blur is more than 2 times your GSD. When the number is red, there will be obvious smearing in the images and it is possible they will not be usable for processing.
The general rule of thumb is to keep your ground smear to less that your GSD.
Long exposure times and high speeds will lead to large amounts of smear.
Automatic Light-based Speed Adjustment
Figuring out what speed to fly beforehand is nearly impossible without flying a recon flight. To make sure the best data is being collected, Map Pilot will adjust the speed appropriately to accommodate the amount of light that is available.
An average exposure time is calculated as the aircraft travels from the point directly overhead to the beginning of the flight path. The average exposure value is used to determine how much light is available. As the start of the flight path is approached, the speed of the mission will be reduced to attempt to keep the ground smear around the GSD.
On the automated light based speed adjustment. I was flying a tract of timber where the light seemed fine very bright mid day and I flew about 3 tracts of timber about 15 -20 acres each. Every time it would slow my drone down to 4.5 mph which takes forever to fly that amount of acres not to mention the battery usage 17 acer tract took 3 batteries. Just wanted to know if I was doing something wrong or if there was a way to set speed instead of having my speed lowered to 4.5mph.
On the automated light based speed adjustment. I was flying a tract of timber where the light seemed fine very bright mid day and I flew about 3 tracts of timber about 15 -20 acres each. Every time it would slow my drone down to 4.5 mph which takes forever to fly that amount of acres not to mention the battery usage 17 acer tract took 3 batteries. Just wanted to know if I was doing something wrong or if there was a way to set speed instead of having my speed lowered to 4.5mph.
If Ground Smear increases to "red" levels, is there a way to MANUALLY readjust/alter the flight speed to account for smearing and REDUCE both speed and smearing? Likewise, if a dark cloud appeared, could you do so? OR, can you dictate before the mission the MAXIMUM Ground Smear you are happy to accept to reduce the aircrafts speed automatically during flight?
I had the same problem as Blake - huge site - 200+ acres, but only need a flat image. 4.5mph is forced due to first pass on a windy day that lowered the speed. Is there a place to change later missions if the first mission was too windy? Ie., edit the restriction? Thx!
Are there any updates on how to resolve or modify the speed adjustment?
This light based speed adjustment can be turned off in the Settings. You can not speed the aircraft back up after the adjustment has been made. If the adjustment is disabled in the Settings you would need to keep an eye on the ground smear number and adjust the exposure/aperture/EV to get the value back in check.
https://support.dronesmadeeasy.com/hc/en-us/articles/209866886-Light-Based-Speed-Adjustment
this is one of features that make this app unique, as I know, but I think it needs to be improved with some kind of “dynamic speed adjustment during flight to compensate illumination variances” not only at the beginning of the mission, but several times as it may be needed.
since I work on a tropical climate zone, the light condition change very often during fly time.
1- when the app makes the speed adjustment only at the beginning of the mission with a clear sky, if the some cloud gets in the area, we start getting photos with high motion blur, so I had to cancel mission every time this happens to avoid capturing bad data, then create another mission for the rest of the area were it started with the high motion blur.
2- The other case is when it is overcast at the beginning of the flight, the app lower the speed, lets say 3m/s, then after some minutes the clouds move away and sky get very clear and sunny, but the drone continue at low speed when it can go faster let’s say 8m/s reducing capturing time, and again, some time I when I see the sky will be clear for a while, then I had to cancel some flight to start again with another speed.
Another good option whould be to be able to manually change the drone speed in the app at any time during the missions, checking the moving clouds / light conditions and the motion blur values