Welcome, Autel Pilots!
Join our free Autel drone community today!
Join Us

Two problems with Orbit

Koala

Member
Joined
Jul 10, 2020
Messages
11
Reaction score
5
Age
70
New probs. The EVO II Pro 4K loses the set point. I fly over the point, set it, move out the radius, set it and hit start. The drone starts to rotate around the set point but then quickly drifts off of it and rotates around another point well distant of the one I set. Problem 2: the drone will occasionally jerk back to a point it had been following. Very frustrating! I five bars on the GPS meter on controller. Thanks in advance. - Rick
 
I really am trying to be helpful when I say this.....its best to learn to perform complex stick movements on your own vs trying to rely on automation. Dolly in/out, pedestal up/down, orbit clockwise/counterclockwise, tilt up/down, and combinations of those movements have been performed by Hollywood for many years without automation both on the ground and in the air. The only two types of footage that simply cannot be done by hand are hyperlapses and timelapses, for everything else I recommend just practicing until you can do it manually.

If you really want to learn how to orbit then just go to a local park, enable the center cross hairs in the display and practice until you can orbit clockwise/counterclockwise without the crosshairs leaving the subject in the center. Trust me, you will thank me later. A particularly difficult scenario for an orbit that automation usually cannot account for is when there is a crosswind that turns into a headwind that turns into a tailwind as you orbit but manually you can correct for this after you gain experience with orbits.

After you perfect simple orbits with no wind then perfect orbits on windy days. The last step then is to perfect orbits around objects that are not a simple shape such as orbiting around a very large multi-family complex that is much longer than it is wide. For that scenario you need to smoothly transition from an orbit to a truck left/right then back into an orbit when you reach the ends.

Once you can smoothly orbit objects in all of those scenarios then add even more camera movements like tilt or pedestal. When you can then speed ramp those movements to 2000 or 3000% and they still look smooth you will know you have graduated orbiting school.

If you don't plan on shooting professionally and just want good looking orbit footage then shoot in 4K60FPS and practice basic orbits around basic shapes. When editing the footage simply pick the best few seconds out of the orbit which you will use in your video footage and you can double that best few seconds by slowing it down by 50%; this is a trick I used to use until I was more proficient at orbiting.
 
Last edited:
I have the same problems with both the orbit & smart orbit. It’s not subtle but pretty drastic in going off point. I understand about learning to perform these complex stick movements and do a pretty good job of it, however, if it’s a smart function it should work.
 
  • Like
Reactions: aerialbrewster
I have the same problems with both the orbit & smart orbit. It’s not subtle but pretty drastic in going off point. I understand about learning to perform these complex stick movements and do a pretty good job of it, however, if it’s a smart function it should work.

I have never tried the EVO's Intelligent modes but it is possible that the set point is set to something that is hard for the camera to properly track. I do not know what AF system the EVO II uses but I'm going to assume it uses Contrast Detect AF (CDAF) and I'm also going to assume that when tracking a subject it also relies on Contrast Detection combined with machine vision and machine learning to track that subject.

Like I mentioned, this is a lot of assumptions, but if they are true then the tracking reliability could depend upon how much contrast is present in the tracked object. So for example, trying to orbit around a tree which typically has low contrast may not be as reliable as trying to orbit around a building. In video editing there's often times when you want to track objects in the video for everything from selective masking to color grading; the reliability of the tracking process varies depending on how large the tracked object is and other factors.

Another factor that typically affects object tracking is the size of the tracked object. So for example the EVO II may have difficulty orbiting around a person from 400' away but no problems orbiting around a building at the same distance. From what I have seen with my EVO II I doubt it is a compass, GPS, or IMU issue. I would try orbiting around subjects of different size, different contrast, etc. to try to figure out if its a software problem or a limitation in the EVO II's tracking abilities.
 
I’m trying to orbit my 3000 sq ft home. Maybe something larger would track correctly
 
I’m trying to orbit my 3000 sq ft home. Maybe something larger would track correctly

If it can't orbit around an entire house then that's definitely not a very intelligent mode. It could be the way the set point is being set, are you enclosing the entire house in the tracking box? I might test the orbit flight mode tomorrow just to be more familiar with how to set it up. Typically though, you have a tracking box which you place around the subject and if the box is set too large then the drone or editing software has too much leeway and can appear to drift since it thinks the center of the orbit is many feet wide, if you set it too small it could lose the tracked object because the tracking box did not encompass a big enough area for it to remain locked on.

Most tracking errors that I have encountered were due to the way the tracking box was set up, it usually takes a little trial and error to figure out how to track different types of subjects.
 
I have tried setting the box around the entire house, chimney, roof pitch line. I have also tried it out on a parked truck, tree and a pond. The smart orbit was working fine when it first came out, however, after a FW upgrade or two it has drifted horribly. I may reload the latest FW again to see if it corrects but I’m not holding my breath. I have used the sticks very successfully and will continue until this is corrected. Just throwing out my experience with it.
 
Just a thought... have you tired using the "original" Orbit vs. Smart Orbit? The original version sets the center point as a static GPS location on the map, instead of identifying an object. Might produce a better result.
 
Exactly, fixing on a GPS point is a thousand times more reliable than the famous Smart-Orbit.
I can descend, ascend, move away and come closer during orbit without losing the center point. The only thing is to manage the tilt of the camera well during the ascent and descent phases.
 
I have used the original orbit with much success. The smart orbit is the one that causes me problems.
 
I have used the original orbit with much success. The smart orbit is the one that causes me problems.

I tested both yesterday; they both seemed clunky to me and the slider to set the speed was very sluggish and unresponsive; even drawing the box in Smart Orbit mode seemed clunky.

I tested orbiting a tree in Smart Orbit mode and it did drift a bit...and it looked like it drifted due to the problems I previously discussed....the box has to be so big that the drone is given plenty of leeway prior to correcting its center point which translates into jerkiness. I would have thought Smart Orbit would be the better one for moving objects like people or bicycles, but when trying to draw a person sized box it kept saying I needed to select a larger area.

Regular Orbit mode...while a bit more reliable was even more clunky having to first hover over the center point then back away; setting the orbit speed in that mode was even worse; the slider to set the speed was nearly unresponsive as was the EVO II. Neither mode was anywhere near as smooth or as quick as what can be achieved manually using just stick input.

I suppose for someone who cannot smoothly orbit any other way the automatic modes provide some value, but neither one is even remotely close to what can be achieved by just learning how to do it via manual controller stick input.
 
I've really come to love and appreciate my EVO II for all of the strengths it has- it's become my drone of choice over all. But even saying that, I rarely recommend it to someone who is new to drones, and I've just come to accept that the intelligent modes available are really more gimmicks then anything else. They also are just not reliable in their consistency to stay on task, so if I need to do tracking or hyperlapses for professional projects, I pretty much always go right to the Mavic 2. It's tracking ability is incredible.
 
Exactly, fixing on a GPS point is a thousand times more reliable than the famous Smart-Orbit.
I can descend, ascend, move away and come closer during orbit without losing the center point. The only thing is to manage the tilt of the camera well during the ascent and descent phases.
Is there a way to preset that GPS point that it rotates around? I want to do a weekly timelapse using the exact same orbit flight each time but can’t find a solution to get that same consistent orbit point.
 
This can only be done with Explorer V1.0.1.45 and Evo 1 Firmware 1.5.8. In all the following versions and especially for Evo 2, it was deleted, will you know why?
This upstream preparation function (without having the drone in flight) in the field or at home with the possibility of saving the mission has therefore disappeared now.
(Except for those who have Evo1, Explorer 1.0.1.45 from Evo 1 and Firmware 1.5.8 and have not updated since. You have to know how to keep what is going).
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your explanation. That’s crazy that the newer drone can’t do this when all of the functionality is there. Hopefully it will be a software update at some point soon.
 
  • Like
Reactions: robertmarcos

Latest threads

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
11,228
Messages
102,655
Members
9,818
Latest member
redwingaerials