Feature Request: Waypoint Event (CameraTriggering)

[Yups]

Hello!

I'm very happy with the development of AQ. I think its the best flightcontroller i've ever seen. But in the moment i can only use it on my testing quad because there is one big feature missing.

Event triggering at waypoints. Can you add this feature in the next releases? It's such a simple thing but i'm not able to code it on myself.

Actually i'm flying with arducopter, 2 crashes, strange behaviour sometimes and i'm not very happy with it at all.

[Ecky]

Yes, would be helpfull in some cases. For me taking a photo at a specific waypoint
is realy interesting, by this way geotagging is included and i don't have to shot eyery
xx second with canon CHDK and looking for the koordinates afterwards

Greatings
Christian

[Jdmagoo]

+1!

[Yups]

Did anything happen in the meantime?

[Max]

We know this is high on the wishlist and have had a few discussion about it, but it will take time to implement correctly. For example, could people describe in more detail their wishlist for "waypoint triggering?" Does that mean you just want to take one picture right when AQ reaches a waypoint? Or...? Don't get too fancy, but some better idea of what people would use for practical purposes would be helpful.

Code for triggering based on distance and/or time has been written and tested, and a passthrough mode for a trigger channel, but needs to be integrated into the current trunk code, and possibly tweaked a bit first.

-Max

[skew]

Max, if possible I would like to see it in QGC mission planer like orbit or land command. we could set waypoint with direction,time. Then have a "trigger port" and the trigger port could be set up in current currect mixing & output, we could set port # min&max travel and time

[Ecky]

Hi Max,

in a first step taking one or a pre defined number of photos after AQ reaches the waypoint
is enough for my application. Triggering the shutter release gives the opportunity to use
the "Log Export Options" in QGC for geotagging the photos. For me it is important, that the
AQ dosen't YAW during loitering at the waypoint even if you use the "POI Heading -0" and holds
the given direction, but this is perhaps a basic missionplanning problem. The "POI Altitude"
is not important for me.

Greatings
Christian

[Max]

Yes geotagging is exactly why I wrote the triggering option into the export. With my PPM setup, I can have channel 5 going directly from Rx to the cam trigger switch, while still having AQ log the channel movement from the PPM stream. Good for geotagging manually taken photos, but of course this doesn't help Spektrum/Sbus users or with automated needs.

Thanks for the ideas, keep 'em coming!

-Max

[Ecky]

OK, I understood. Perhaps there is a other solution to mark the
moment of shutter release in the AQ Log. It would be very helpful
if this could be done. Geotagging with timestamp is a synchronisation
problem and not a real but thinkable solution.

Greatings
Christian

[chschmid]

Hi Max

First of all thanks for your great work with the new QGC v1.2.0.

For my application it would be nice to have two (spectrum) channels passthrough. (I had to modify the code now)
I use one channel for off/on/record and a second for zooming in/out the CX730.
It would also make perfect sence to use the trigger port to start recording at a specific waypoint and stop recording at an other waypoint. It would be important to set the trigger off PWM (eg 1500) and the trigger on PWM (eg 1900).

Best
Christof