How to orbit an OBJECT?

Skyking · Jan 26, 2020

I have a Skydio 2. I am a real estate photographer. How can I get it to orbit or do a "skill" around / froman OBJET. Yes, I see that it identifies cars, people, animals but how to I orbit a HOME or BUILDING?

Lon Denard · Jan 27, 2020

Skyking said:
I have a Skydio 2. I am a real estate photographer. How can I get it to orbit or do a "skill" around / froman OBJET. Yes, I see that it identifies cars, people, animals but how to I orbit a HOME or BUILDING?

You don't, brother... That a manual skill. The good news is that with the Obstacle Avoidance, you should be pretty safe.

Example:

(BTW the orbits around the car were Skydio auto orbits, not exactly smooth...)

Skyking · Feb 1, 2020

I need to be able to do multiple 260 rotations about an object and manipulate distance and altitude. I am an experienced drone pilot with well over 1200 missions averaging 20 minutes each.

Lon Denard · Feb 1, 2020

Skyking said:
I need to be able to do multiple 260 rotations about an object and manipulate distance and altitude. I am an experienced drone pilot with well over 1200 missions averaging 20 minutes each.

You could have someone stand on the roof... Sorry, I'm not trying to be a jerk or whatever but that's just not something the Skydio 2 can do. They could easily add it in a firmware update later, if they choose. This goes back to my misgivings with the platform for cinematography and enterprise use. It just doesn't have the necessary features baked in. I even looked at Drone Deploy ($99/month) but I couldn't get a concrete answer if it added a point of interest option. They do offer a 14 day free trial and claim it is compatible with the Skydio 2. So you could try it.

All I can say is otherwise you'll have to fly your orbits manually for the time being. With your flight experience, it should be a piece of cake.

samsipe · Mar 11, 2020

Anyone tryout drone deploy with Skydio 2 yet??

kalimouse · Feb 26, 2021

Skyking said:
I need to be able to do multiple 260 rotations about an object and manipulate distance and altitude. I am an experienced drone pilot with well over 1200 missions averaging 20 minutes each.

If you have a dji drone and litchi, I was able to use this to Spiral Mission Maker for Litchi

K9BM · May 17, 2021

Sorry to dredge up an old post, but as a beginner with SD I felt compelled to weigh in and take whatever feedback might come. "My other drone" is a Yuneec Typhoon H, and close to 5 years ago Yuneec built POI capability into their aircraft--and it works pretty darn well. Hover over a house, mark the center point by a tap of the touchscreen, fly out to a desired radius and elevation, then move the stick in whichever direction you want to fly. The aircraft flies continuous circles, at whatever speed you wish (you can tap it faster or slower), and you can even spiral away by increasing the elevation, all while the camera stays aimed at the selected center point object. At the time it came out this was a $450 drone, and can still be had for that price used.

So I spent 3x that for a Skydio 2 with a couple of extra batteries and a beacon, because I was impressed with the object avoidance, the ruggedness, and the smaller form factor (Typhoon H is huge and unwieldy on the ground). Foolishly, I made the assumption that a product with such sophisticated object recognition, situational awareness, and tracking capability would have this fairly basic functionality. Now I see I was certainly wrong--not because the SD can't do it, but because the company made a business decision to take this withheld functionality and package it as a very high dollar standalone software add-on aimed at people they figured would be likely to pay it--professional drone photographers, real estate agents, home inspection companies, utility companies, etc.

Apparently unlike the vast majority of SD users, I did not buy the aircraft to follow me on a skateboard or motocross bike. I have used the follow me functions (usually on an ATV) and they're very nice. But the Typhoon H would do that also, and I was expecting a similar range of capabilities--actually I was expecting more. Before I list my SD for sale here or Ebay I would welcome any discussion or feedback. Did I simply buy the wrong product because I'm not into extreme sport aerial photography?

kenmavic2zoom · May 17, 2021

K9BM said:
Sorry to dredge up an old post, but as a beginner with SD I felt compelled to weigh in and take whatever feedback might come. "My other drone" is a Yuneec Typhoon H, and close to 5 years ago Yuneec built POI capability into their aircraft--and it works pretty darn well. Hover over a house, mark the center point by a tap of the touchscreen, fly out to a desired radius and elevation, then move the stick in whichever direction you want to fly. The aircraft flies continuous circles, at whatever speed you wish (you can tap it faster or slower), and you can even spiral away by increasing the elevation, all while the camera stays aimed at the selected center point object. At the time it came out this was a $450 drone, and can still be had for that price used.

So I spent 3x that for a Skydio 2 with a couple of extra batteries and a beacon, because I was impressed with the object avoidance, the ruggedness, and the smaller form factor (Typhoon H is huge and unwieldy on the ground). Foolishly, I made the assumption that a product with such sophisticated object recognition, situational awareness, and tracking capability would have this fairly basic functionality. Now I see I was certainly wrong--not because the SD can't do it, but because the company made a business decision to take this withheld functionality and package it as a very high dollar standalone software add-on aimed at people they figured would be likely to pay it--professional drone photographers, real estate agents, home inspection companies, utility companies, etc.

Apparently unlike the vast majority of SD users, I did not buy the aircraft to follow me on a skateboard or motocross bike. I have used the follow me functions (usually on an ATV) and they're very nice. But the Typhoon H would do that also, and I was expecting a similar range of capabilities--actually I was expecting more. Before I list my SD for sale here or Ebay I would welcome any discussion or feedback. Did I simply buy the wrong product because I'm not into extreme sport aerial photography?

yeah sounds like you bought the wrong product.

FliesDrones · May 18, 2021

K9BM said:
Sorry to dredge up an old post, but as a beginner with SD I felt compelled to weigh in and take whatever feedback might come. "My other drone" is a Yuneec Typhoon H, and close to 5 years ago Yuneec built POI capability into their aircraft--and it works pretty darn well. Hover over a house, mark the center point by a tap of the touchscreen, fly out to a desired radius and elevation, then move the stick in whichever direction you want to fly. The aircraft flies continuous circles, at whatever speed you wish (you can tap it faster or slower), and you can even spiral away by increasing the elevation, all while the camera stays aimed at the selected center point object. At the time it came out this was a $450 drone, and can still be had for that price used.

So I spent 3x that for a Skydio 2 with a couple of extra batteries and a beacon, because I was impressed with the object avoidance, the ruggedness, and the smaller form factor (Typhoon H is huge and unwieldy on the ground). Foolishly, I made the assumption that a product with such sophisticated object recognition, situational awareness, and tracking capability would have this fairly basic functionality. Now I see I was certainly wrong--not because the SD can't do it, but because the company made a business decision to take this withheld functionality and package it as a very high dollar standalone software add-on aimed at people they figured would be likely to pay it--professional drone photographers, real estate agents, home inspection companies, utility companies, etc.

Apparently unlike the vast majority of SD users, I did not buy the aircraft to follow me on a skateboard or motocross bike. I have used the follow me functions (usually on an ATV) and they're very nice. But the Typhoon H would do that also, and I was expecting a similar range of capabilities--actually I was expecting more. Before I list my SD for sale here or Ebay I would welcome any discussion or feedback. Did I simply buy the wrong product because I'm not into extreme sport aerial photography?

The enterprise app seems to have an orbit in place but at $1500/yr per drone, it's just a slap in the face.

There's a clear divide where you get certain features for capturing your own footage versus "commercial features".

Once the skydio-skills SDK opens up, I'm sure we'll see new things.. You might be able to make a profit on your drone as the starter kits are now $1349 versus $999.

K9BM · May 18, 2021

I think you're right, I simply bought the wrong product for my needs, my fault for not doing better research. Also, I had no idea the prices had zoomed up. I'm happy to just recoup my purchase price, I've only had it less than six months and it's been flown maybe a half dozen times. I'll take some photos and post it for sale in the classifieds forum area for $1,550 (Sports package currently $1,799). Anyone interested, please PM. And thanks FliesDrones for your comments....

FliesDrones · May 18, 2021

K9BM said:
I think you're right, I simply bought the wrong product for my needs, my fault for not doing better research. Also, I had no idea the prices had zoomed up. I'm happy to just recoup my purchase price, I've only had it less than six months and it's been flown maybe a half dozen times. I'll take some photos and post it for sale in the classifieds forum area for $1,550 (Sports package currently $1,799). Anyone interested, please PM. And thanks FliesDrones for your comments....

I think we may see some of those enterprise features come down, but yeah, it's a kick in the gut to be like "orbiting a random point in 3d space in $1500/yr". I wish we could DLC-buy the skills but you can't effect change on a company when you're just a customer.

The price increase is due to chip costs and I expect it to hang out for a year or two. I still think it's one of the best devices I've ever used and once I find out how to get it to orbit a point in place, I may go into it.

Lifeisfun · May 19, 2021

Not to have basic skill to orbit object is stupid, we are complaining about it for long time.
Skydio, time to do something about it.

Jackie · May 28, 2021

You can't orbit an object but if you are willing to orbit from a little above, the vortex skill might do it for you. One of the options is a flat spiral around a starting point. You don't have as much control as you would like but it might be a work around that will work in some situations. Also, in another post, someone suggested that you could use the beacon to start an orbit, put the beacon down and then hide yourself or somehow get out of the shot. The drone should continue to orbit the beacon. Obviously this doesn't work everywhere.........Jackie