Reach M+ Hotshoe only for PPK and not RTK?

Reach Module / M+ / M2 RTK / PPK configuration
1

Hi all,

This may be a simple/silly question, but why is the camera hotshoe only used for a PPK workflow? Are we assuming that in a RTK workflow the auto-pilot will be utilising the RTK coordinates to trigger the camera and therefore already has accurate image geotags?

Thanks,
Dave

2

I think it is not possible/would need an extra process to get the position of a time mark in RTK mode.

The time marks are written to the the RINEX file at least one epoche delayed, so I guess that is also the case when doing RTK. To get the position in real time there would need to be a separate process which saves the previous track points and interpolates the position of the time marks (at least that is what I think).

I guess EMLID did not introduce that up to now. If you use Arducopter you could connect the Autopilot to the hotshoe and get the images tagged with the RTK coordinates with the help of Mission Planner. But that also needs additional “processing”.

I’m also not sure whether there is a lot of cases where one would prefere that solution over PPK. I fly a lot with RTK and I do not have a fix solution all the time. At the other hand PPK works almost all the time. And all the other steps to get my images ready for Metashape take far more time than the PPK processing.

What does help to reduce the PPK time requirement is that I do not cut the power of the Reach unit between the flights.

1 Like
5

Hi Tobias, true using RTK would still require post-possessing of the geo-tags, so may as well stick to PPK workflow since it will be more reliable and flexible than RTK.

Thanks

6

This is the same thing DJI experienced with the Matrice “RTK” a couple of years ago. Then they finally got it correct with the P4RTK.

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