How to include drone altitude in Live Tracker position updates?
I've created a script that tracks real-time Skydio drone position information and transmits it to CalTopo, but it looks like the CalTopo API only supports latitude and longitude. See https://training.caltopo.com/all_users/team-accounts/team-tracking#trackabledevice
Example: https://caltopo.com/api/v1/position/report/SARTRUCKS?id=14&lat=36.47375&lng=-118.85302
I'd like to also publish the altitude of the drone, like:
What is the query parameter to include altitude? Even if it's undocumented, that's fine.
Comments
7 comments
It's not something we currently support, although we're looking at adding it.
Got it. I’ve updated my integration to now be able to track multiple Skydio drones simultaneously on the same as Trackable Devices.
I’m happy to help test if this feature makes it into a release.
We've added support for an "elevation" parameter (GPS elevation in meters) along with some properties specific to aircraft and cameras, that our UI does or will soon know how to render. Both the UI and these properties may be subject to change as we're able to collect real-world data. For example, we'd like to ray trace from the aircraft's location using it's elevation and the camera tilt to show the exact target of the camera, but want some real-world data and corresponding pictures, to test how accurate that is before implementing it.
* aircraft:altitude (height above MSL in feet, if both elevation and altitude are specified, altitude wins)
* aircraft:altitude_rate (rate of climb in ft/min)
* aircraft:pitch (in degrees, positive is nose up)
* aircraft:roll (posiitive is left wing up)
* aircraft:gs (speed over the ground in knots)
* aircraft:heading (direction the nose is pointing)
* aircraft:track (direction of travel over the ground)
* camera:azimuth (angle the camera is facing, degrees true north)
* camera:tilt (up/down angle relative to horizon, -90 is straight down)
* camera:fov_width (horizontal field of view in degrees)
* camera:fov_height (vertical field of view in degrees)
* camera:external_url (link to an external website showing the camera livestream)
* camera:thumbnail_url (direct link to camera thumbnail image)
This is FANTASTIC! I'm looking forward to incorporating whichever changes I can into my Skydio tracking code. How would yoyu like to be kept updated on progress of incorporating these parameters? I love the idea of trying to render what the drone was actually seeing - that will also need to take into consideration the camera zoom level and also thermal/visible camera type.
Clarifying question: does "elevation" parameter mean "AGL - Above Ground Level" and "altitude" parameter mean "MSL - Mean Sea Level"?
Please also update the docs page that discusses API parameters with these new endpoint parameters (e.g. https://training.caltopo.com/all_users/team-accounts/team-tracking or similar)
Well done!
Matt,
This map has lots of drone tracks and photos attached to markers. They were created with some different DJI drones using Eagle Eyes Pilot. I can also share track information obtained via Airdata.
This will be a great tool. While you are at it, can you add UAS as a resource type for assignments?
https://caltopo.com/m/F3BG0C0/46HEGEB9R0GMBRV8
Can't wait for those new features!
ADIAT (Automated Drone Image Analysis Tool) plots a target location based on GSD, GPS coordinate, and camera parameters.
NOVA does that.
I am sure Eagle Eyes will be doing the same soon.
It is not perfectly accurate but it is more accurate then using the drones GPS coordinates.
If you need real world data we can definitely provide you some.
Bill - you can post here and I'll get a notification, or email me directly at first initial + last name at caltopo (don't want to post my actual email address for spam reasons). Curious to hear how it goes. Elevation = GPS-derived elevation. Altitude is currently the same, but in feet. I've been told that there are some difference between GPS elevation and MSL altitude based on different spheroids used for the earth, which while small in the grand scheme of things, are relevant at typical drone AGL values. So while we currently blindly convert altitude feet to meters and treat it as if it came out of a GPS, we're specifying that it's supposed to be MSL and that we will try to handle it as such in the future. Our intent is to compute AGL from the elevation number based on our own DEM data.
Chuck - thanks, that map is a good datapoint for us since some of the photos are tagged with GPS location, elevation and camera orientation, and we can use them to test out ray tracing. I hear you on adding UAS, we are trying to make some larger assignment changes first.
John - if you have a few test images that are tagged with both the camera's location (including elevation) and it's orientation, I'd be happy to take a look at them, especially if they are in mountainous terrain. You can email me (address above) or help@caltopo.com, or post a link here.
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