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Drone Amplified Android App now has Elevation Maps

Drone Amplified

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Hello Commercial Drone Pilots,

We're working on a new flight app for DJI drones on Android. We've recently finished an exciting new feature that we want to share with you: Elevation Maps. The app will download elevation maps from our servers and use them while you're flying to estimate the drone's actual altitude above ground level. This is really useful for flying in mountainous terrain.

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You can toggle an overlay that shows a colorized heightmap of the surrounding terrain. A legend on the left shows the elevation of the drone, the home point, and the terrain underneath the drone.

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These elevation maps also enhance the way you program waypoint missions with this app. After placing a sequence of waypoints on the map, you can see this "Side View" of the waypoint mission, which shows the elevation of the terrain under the flight path (this is the brown portion of the screen). You can touch and drag each individual waypoint up and down to adjust its altitude. In this image, I've programmed the waypoint mission to follow the terrain by flying horizontally across this ridge, then descend down into a valley.

We also have some configurable visual guides to show the height of the treetops (green region), and the height of your airspace (light-blue region). These heights are set by the user, and with these visual guides you can ensure that your waypoint mission will stay at a safe distance above the ground, but won't go so high that you exceed your local regulations for the maximum altitude above ground level you can fly at.

This app is currently under development, but you can download its open-beta version for free from the Google Play Store. It has the main features necessary in order to be used as a flight interface for DJI drones, as well as other nice features like waypoint missions, camera and gimbal control, offline maps, map overlays, flight logging (compatible with dronelogbook.com), and more. We are looking for feedback from users like you, so we can implement features that are important to you, and streamline your flying experience.

Download the app here:
 
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Hello Commercial Drone Pilots,

We're working on a new flight app for DJI drones on Android. We've recently finished an exciting new feature that we want to share with you: Elevation Maps. The app will download elevation maps from our servers and use them while you're flying to estimate the drone's actual altitude above ground level. This is really useful for flying in mountainous terrain.



You can toggle an overlay that shows a colorized heightmap of the surrounding terrain. A legend on the left shows the elevation of the drone, the home point, and the terrain underneath the drone.



These elevation maps also enhance the way you program waypoint missions with this app. After placing a sequence of waypoints on the map, you can see this "Side View" of the waypoint mission, which shows the elevation of the terrain under the flight path (this is the brown portion of the screen). You can touch and drag each individual waypoint up and down to adjust its altitude. In this image, I've programmed the waypoint mission to follow the terrain by flying horizontally across this ridge, then descend down into a valley.

We also have some configurable visual guides to show the height of the treetops (green region), and the height of your airspace (light-blue region). These heights are set by the user, and with these visual guides you can ensure that your waypoint mission will stay at a safe distance above the ground, but won't go so high that you exceed your local regulations for the maximum altitude above ground level you can fly at.

This app is currently under development, but you can download its open-beta version for free from the Google Play Store. It has the main features necessary in order to be used as a flight interface for DJI drones, as well as other nice features like waypoint missions, camera and gimbal control, offline maps, map overlays, flight logging (compatible with dronelogbook.com), and more. We are looking for feedback from users like you, so we can implement features that are important to you, and streamline your flying experience.

Download the app here:

Thanks for the announcement. The app looks pretty interesting so I downloaded the beta.

One issue that I noticed right away was when I was trying to download Offline Maps. The message said to zoom in to frame the area I wanted to download, and then to hit the Download button. I zoomed into an area that I wanted, but there was no Download button on the interface. Later I realized that the Download button only would appear if I zoomed in much further.

I suggest changing the interface to make it clear that the user needs to zoom in further. Maybe the download button can be displayed but have a message on it indicating that further zoom is necessary.

I won't be able to actually fly with the app for a while, so I'll be able to do further tests then.

Edit: I found another critical bug that will make flying with this app impossible for me until it's resolved. I connected my Mavic Air controller to my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 (running Android 9 Pie / OneUI), and while running your app the display is upside down when in the controller. I tried toggling the auto-rotate section in my notification drop-down and that didn't have any effect.
 
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