Request to decrease in Map Pilot Pro slowest speed setting from 2 m/s down to 0.1 m/s

Zane, thank you for your kind and prompt explanation and workaround suggestion.

Very sad of DJI to limit SDK this way. Virtual stick is not an option for me as I fly autonomous missions often.

I'll definitely look at workaround you suggested. However, I suspect that STI mode will be much more energy and time consuming  compared to "standard" mapping at lowered speed.

Zane,

at https://support.dronesmadeeasy.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/206877106-Night-time-mapping

you mentioned that
"It sounds like you will need to expose for longer than that so you might be on your own for just manually flying the path that Map Pilot designs. We have a bunch of people that use it this way"

So, another workaround for me would be create mission for my AOI, activate "Show nearby mission plans" and then fly MPP fully manually by sticks along created mission track, manually pressing RC photo button every 2 seconds? I did similar manual mapping in DJI Go4 using "timed shot". Can timed shot (photo every 2 seconds) be used in MPP as I fly manually along mission track?

Thank you.

Not if it isn't flying an automated flight. If you are flying .1 m/s and you take an image every 2 seconds you are going to end up with 99% overlap... STI was designed with nighttime mapping and ultra low mapping in mind.

Zane, thank you for kind clarification.

Please, answer another related question. Can you tell why MPP developers decided to limit max speed not only along mapping trajectory, but for approach and return as well? 

Limiting max speed for mission down to 2 m/s is great way of reducing smear. However current MPP settings will limit approach/return flight segments as well, which is a pure waste of battery and time in my opinion.

If someone needs to do autonomous flight mission in relatively low light conditions (forcing one to reduce flight speed) at a distance 2-4 km from operator (in many countries you can legally arrange it) it will be almost impossible to do. Drone will waste almost all battery on 2 m/s approach to starting point. 

I have this problem  as I often shoot poorly lit and distant (several kilometers from me) areas. I have to use lowered speed for mapping. I lose drone signal at a distance of 1 km (due to vegetation block) so I can not manually force drone to approach/return at higher speeds. I suppose my mapping scenario is pretty common.

Why not limit max speed settings to mapping part of drone flight only and leave approach/return on max (10-15 m/s)?

The CURRENT assumption is that people will use the fastest speed available for their overlap settings and height. So then the Max Speed slider serves as a maximum speed limit for the whole flight. This is all predicated on the assumption of limiting things to a 2X GSD multiple.

In a future release we will be adding a setting which will allow you to elect a smaller maximum GSD for the smear limitation. This would likely address your need. 

Zane, thank you again for your kind and prompt explanation.

However, I think you misunderstood me because of my imperfect English.

Let me try again. 

Small disclaimer - MPP is a great app and I am pretty happy with it.

However, I seen many posts on this forum with people struggling with excessive smear like me. Many people like me shoot in poor light conditions during winter cloudy days. We try to maximize our daily productivity, which forces many of us take drone imagery from dawn to dusk. So low light scenarios are common among your clients. 

I tried many options and camera settings in MPP to combat low light conditions. I was not happy with "slow aircraft according to light conditions" option because it dropped speed down to 2 m/s with still excessive smear.
I got far better results when I used Manual camera mode (iso 100, f/2.8 as I shoot pretty flat surfaces, and shutter 1/30-1/120). I force speed to its lowest (2 m/s), fly up, select proper shutter based on video feed I get from drone and then fly mission. If lighting changes along my flight I pause mission and adjust shutter. As far as I do not shutter lower than 1/60 (my GSD is around 1.5 cm/px as I fly at 50 m) speed of 2 m/s is OK with me, as I get decent images.

However, I lose severely in production because I simply waste huge amount of battery power and flight time due to miserable 2 m/s approach/return speed. Moreover, it is simply impossible to autonomously map anything further than 2 km from operator. As soon as RC signal is lost drone will drag at 2 m/s on its approach and return.

Reducing 2X GSD multiple will not solve my problem. However limiting max speed settings to mapping part of drone flight only and leaving approach/return on max (10-15 m/s) will solve the issue.

I suspect my work scenario is pretty common among your clients and hopefully you can address this issue.

Regards.

No, your English is great and I understand. Think about what your actual goal is: less smear. Your wanting to slow down is just how you are attempting to limit the smear. We are going to be providing a mechanism in the future to address the smear limitation directly. 

There is a subset of users, like yourself, that want to use the Max Speed slider to slow down the mapping portion of the flight path but as you are finding that slows the whole flight down. The Max Speed is intended to be used for controlling the speed of the approach and return legs. By adding a setting to limit the GSD to factors other than 2X (such as .5X, 1X and 1.5X) this will serve to slow down the flight on the mapping portion of the flight path. Once that is slowed down to address the actually issue you are trying to address using a more direct method the Max Speed will then go back to controlling the speed of the approach and return legs. 

This still won't allow us to actually go slower than 2 m/s though. That is a different issue we already discussed. 

Lowered GSD factor seems to be a reasonable solution. Looking forward this feature release to test it. Nice to see active development of MPP and prompt addressing of users needs. Thanks for your time and patience.

P.S. Just a minor last comment.

When I use manual camera settings, I can still tick "slow aircraft according to light conditions" but the speed does not drop to match the shutter I set manually. Drone just flies with the speed which is calculated according to model/height/overlap parameters.

When I choose Automatic camera settings and tick "slow aircraft according to light conditions" the speed does drop according to "best" shutter MPP calculates, but I get lower quality photos with excessive iso (over 100, causing unwanted grain on image in low light) and excessive aperture (to capture relatively flat surfaces in low light max aperture works best without harming focus depth). 

If I choose Shutter priority for camera with "slow ..." option ticked the drone again does not slow down and again I get undesirably high iso and lowered aperture.

So, hopefully new lowered GSD factors will work with Manual camera settings. To shoot in poorly lit environment Manual (and periodically updated during the flight) settings work best.

Would it be possible for me to get an invite to this Beta? STI sounds like a feature that might be very useful to me also, since I do a lot of very low elevation / low overlap missions and smear is a persistent problem. I've had a lot of the same frustrations as Vladimir. Lots of manual camera management, etc, etc, etc.

5.3.0 with the STI feature was released last week.