Tuesday, February 11, 2025

LIDAR Scanning, Gaussian splatting, Photogrammetry and the Unreal engine!

LIDAR Basics

LIDAR Scanning - as shown in my review about the 3DMakerPro Eagle Pro - is measuring millions of dots with LASER and creating 3D landscapes with 2cm accuracy. Additional use of cameras can help colorize these scans to make them look even better. Find out if this is something for you!

"Gaussian splatting" takes it to another level and create even more impressive landscapes!

Learned all of this while researching for my review - covered a lot of topics - so the limits of a youtube description box were reached swiftley ;)

LINKS:

3DMakerPro Facebook Group

JimuMeta (3DMaker): https://scene.jimumeta.com
https://gauss.jimumeta.com      Demo scene Lake
(online platform starts March 2025)

3DMakerPro "RAY-Studio" Software: (usage guid and tips below!)
early alpha tool, not very polished

Download my "monument" pointcloud sample data for your own tests!
Cloud Compare  (open source! - best pointcloud tool I found during research)  

my FINDINGS:

  • micro SD slot:  Scans are automatically stored there - so you don't have to export using the (slow) USB Stick export method
  • Size of internal memory: 32gb
  • SD slot should be accesible even if grip-base part ist attached
  • Button on grip:   used to take Panoramic pics - not used in scan mode
  • Calculations in Software (RayStudio 1.01) are slow - they don't use all of your CPU and almost none of your GPU power. My i9-9900K CPU was around 14% - and there was no core at 100% usage (aka singlecore usage).


SCANNING TIPS:

  • stay below 20kph
  • below 4.5 minutes (to keep the filesize low)
  • check exposure for good textures
  • move steady and slow and make multiple runs (with different angles)
  • "look behind stuff" to fill unknown areas
  • Combine multiple scans into one scenery?
    yes, but only manually aligning is available (I used Cloud Compare)


TECH SPECS:

SMA connector on top (antenna, GPS?)
Lidar Dome in front
Accuracy  2cm for 10 meters, 3cm for 20 meters, 5cm for 40 meters
Scan radius 40-70 meters (>10% reflectivity or >80% reflectivity)
Scan range  10-140 meters
Scan angle Horizontal 360°, Vertical 59°
Point cloud frequency  200,000 points/second
Laser light source  905 nm
Eye safety level  Class 1 (IEC60825-1:2014) Eye Safety
Color texture  48MP 4-camera system, 360° x 300° support 16K panoramic
photo output
4x 48MP cams (180°, F2.0) but pics seem to be 12mp (4000x3000 super wideagle) (Front, 120° left and right, top)
HDR mode Support (3-5 exposure values)
USB C interface  x 2
  Data: here you PLUGIN your USBc NTFS stick - not a cable to your PC!
  Power: for charging or power during use
Built-in battery  12000 mah, supports 1 hour of work, supports external
Network support  Wi-Fi 5
Screen size  3.5”
Output format  3D Color Point Cloud PLY
3D Gaussian Splatting PLY
3D Colored Polygonal Model OBJ
3D Panoramic Tour Data (OBJ)
Volume  115mm x 181mm x 107mm
Weight 1.5 kg
Configuration 8 Cores 2.4GHz 32GB
MicroSD Card slot on bottom (card must be NTFS!)
Battery indicator

Competions products:

Leica BLK2GO 30k€?
FJD Trion P1 LiDAR 3D Scanner  ~ 10k€

Sunday, January 26, 2025

DJI O4 - Worth the upgrade? How does it look with SCENIC DIVES?

In case you haven't seen enough comparison videos - here is my honest take on the new DJI DIY drone video link.
It's a nice step up and again makes O3 footage look old now πŸ™‚
Flew with Chimera7 (O3) and Aura7 (O4) copters up to my nicely accessible snowy mountain top "RAX" for some example dives πŸ™‚
πŸŽ₯▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬πŸŽ₯ DJI O4: Foxeer Aura7, 658g (all except battery) DJI O3: iFlight Chimera7 676g (-"-) Filmed with: Pana G9II, DJI Mic2, Oneplus 12, edited with Premiere Pro, Gyroflow ♫▬▬▬▬MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬♫ Waste My Love - Henyao I use EPIDEMIC SOUND, get your account here (affiliate)

Tuesday, January 21, 2025

Most "Dive-able" mountain I ever saw!

...this was last year, on our way home from the epic Italy vacation where I filmed a lot of stunning mountains - my own country gave me this better looking side of it and we were just there at the right time! Enjoy! Greets, Mario
πŸŽ₯▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬πŸŽ₯ Filmed with: Chimera7, DJI O3, ND16, Gyroflow, edited with Premiere Pro ♫▬▬▬▬MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬♫ Not Blue - Kylie Dailey I use EPIDEMIC SOUND, get your account here (affiliate)

Saturday, January 4, 2025

Insane Formation DIVES, pure FPV fun and PANIC with TX16s Emergency mode!

Here we met on one of my favourite spots. It's a dead end street, not a lot of people passing by, friendly farmers and no one complaining about our flying (even tho we were there the whole day) - great FPV day!
One of the last days of 2024 - and I had so much luck (with my ARWingpro). My friends were not so lucky: one destroyed RCCar (see the spectacular crash in my last short or here in the long form: https://youtu.be/K4gr_OThsE4 one missing Ranger T1, a few broken props, motormounts, ... Even tho it was subzero temps there - the sun warmed us up and besides the high and turbulent winds higher up near the cliffs, the weather was great. For me the star of this video is the MFD plane from Ritchie - it's the "Mothership" and it's been thru a lot as he told me. Fantastic slow flyer - but man - this speedy formation dive is the best I've seen in a long time. Most epic scenes in this video involved his plane ;) only few of the clips here were flown by myself :) Happ 2025, Mario and Crew!

please check my PATREON DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS
●▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Flew with: ARWing, Dolphin and DJI Air3 Filmed with: DJI O3 (footage stabilized with Gyroflow plugin directly in Premiere Pro) ●▬▬▬♫MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Hypercell, Atlas 17, Headphones - Ooyy Future Is Now - FLYIN I use EPIDEMIC SOUND, get your account here (affiliate): https://bit.ly/3p6OGE0

Monday, December 16, 2024

The Truth About the xTool S1 After 7 Months

Been using this fine #lasercutter from #xTool now since 7 Months - see how I liked it in my honest, longterm review:
🌐▬▬▬πŸ›’LINKS▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬🌐 I deliver honest opinions, well researched and tested (sometimes "almost scientific" ;) reviews! If you'd like to support me, either use my affiliate links (doesn't cost you extra) or visit my patreon page πŸ™

xTool S1 in different regions: prices are WAY better than in my initial review! US EU UK FR DE

✅RISER: official (recommended) xToolS1 Riser kit or the DIY πŸ’‘ route: 3D Part "Riser feet" as 3D Print Competition: ✅LaserPecker 4Creality Falcon 2 pro 40Watt! (1149€ for the 40w version!!!) or go crazy πŸ’ͺ with the 60W πŸ”₯

DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE???

ZimaCube Pro - NAS / PC / Laptop?


ZimaCube Pro

πŸ“‹TECH SPECS:

Efficient Laptop CPU (Intel I5 1235U) in a miniPC case, lots of drive bays: 
6 SATA disk bays (3.5 or 2.5" HDDs)
4 M2 SSDs on 7th bay
2 M2 SSDs on mainboard (if you sacrifice that 10GB NIC)
or you can install 2? more PCIe Cards that hold M2 SSDs!

2x 2.5GB NICs
1x 10GB NIC (via an internal M2 slot)
2x Thunderbolt 4 ⚡ (20GB speed if your PC/Laptop supports it!)
4x USB3 A, 1x USBc
DP, HDMI, Audio connector

πŸ”₯Cooling still bad (even after revision of their first CPU cooler)
loud and inefficient, but replace a few fans and this one downside is gone!
I designed a custom Back Cover for a super silent 14cm FAN!
Link into ONSHAPE  
or get the STL File

✅SOFTWARE - ZimaOS FINDINGS:

- Old hdds with data on it can be easily enabled!  (but some they are sometimes READ ONLY)
- Attached ext. USB drives can be shared (no change of share names...) and they are READ and WRITE!
- Software UPDATE function via WebUI super easy (there's also the manual USB stick method which is OK, but involves some additional steps)  
- HDDs might not always go to sleep mode - which can cost 5-10W per HDD!
+ very easy UI, complex tasks (like setup RAID, shares...) are made very user friendly
- limited functionality

Alternatives:  many options (if you like to tinker) 
  TrueNas Scale  (free, mighty, many options, also confusing)
  Proxmox, Unraid,...
OR...  Windows11 / Windows server...
  which is what I chose in the end

✅POWER CONSUMPTION / PERFORMANCE:

Geekbench 6:  
Single-Core:  2147     (2051 in Energy saver mode)
Multi-Core:    7704     (7440   ="=)

my current QNAP TS431p takes 12w idle, and  42w with 4x 3.5" HDDs active
ZimaCube with ZimaOS: no hdds 28.7w 
   7w standby (If Nas is off! comes from WOL NIC?)

ZimaCube with Win11 as NAS ~ 38w idle power (so it has a bit more overhead, but way more features and convenience)

πŸ’‘ TIP: Jumper power on setting on mb!
πŸ’‘LED customization

BIOS UPDATE

✅ πŸ’‘TrueNAS guide for ZIMACUBE Pro

- Download   TrueNAS Scale   ISO!
  (first I tried TrueNAS core - but it's outdated)
https://www.truenas.com/download-truenas-scale/
- flash it onto an USB stick using https://rufus.ie/de/
- put the Stick into your Nas and boot from it
- (you might have to enter BIOS - with BACKSP. or DEL to setup the BOOT order)
german article about setting up PLEX on TrueNAS

✅Windows 11 as NAS
Ghost Spectre Windows 11 24H2
Use compact version not superlite
LTSC: https://bit.ly/40NFysq   PW: 24h2
 https://ghostclouds.xyz/wp/w11-24h2-entltsc/

make Windows network discoverable!

!Use stream deck as status display
setup auto login (for Stream deck monitoring after a reboot)

Drivers for Windows:
10gbe port the driver I am using is marvel AQtion 10Gbit
https://community.zimaspace.com/t/how-to-run-windows-11-on-zimacube-pro/4063

πŸ’‘ FIX if needed: Storagepool interleave size vs. allocation unit size - SLOW writes: https://wasteofserver.com/storage-spaces-with-parity-very-slow-writes-solved/

please check my PATREON
DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS ●▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Filmed with: G9ii, edited with Premiere Pro ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ → http://goo.gl/szFJv ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ (best way to support me!) ╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

🐝 Bee25 - waking up the neighbours (⛼,🏠, 🌲)

On this day I had one pack left (which was not on storage charge) and as a good lipo maintainer I felt the need to fly this pack empty ;) Really happy with what kind of easy FPV experience these devices can deliver now! Can imagine it getting even better with DJI O4 or similar. Greets and happy flying!
please check my PATREON
DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS ●▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Filmed with: DJI O3 and edited with Premiere Pro ●▬▬▬♫MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬●
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Friday, November 15, 2024

Majestic Valley FPV Adventure: ARWing Chase, Epic Dives, and INAV Autolanding (failsafe)

This was maybe the best FPV flying we had this year. Great weather (after a foggy morning we drove an hour to reach 3 jawdropping spots. I already flew there but my buddy was overwhelmed by the landscape!
Instead of a long commented video you get something different this time. VERY different. Not sure if everybody will like the "twist" in here (there are also a few dramatic things that happend). So excited to share this now and see your reactions ;) Happy flying, happy weekend - greetings to my buddies of the "FPV Tribe"

please check my PATREON DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS thanks to  @hover82  for the chase shots and the action! ARWing pro review: https://youtu.be/Z4JeN7U_KDw ARWing pro tips video: https://youtu.be/UHwkO_zhJt4 some vids with this plane: https://youtu.be/V5Bw3aONePY https://youtu.be/NyUKptiAVZ4

●▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Flew with: ARWing, Mini Talon and Chimera 7 Filmed with: DJI O3 (footage stabilized with Gyroflow plugin directly in Premiere Pro) ●▬▬▬♫MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Lyrics from me, refined from ChatGPT and turned into a song by suno.com (find song and lyrics here) What do you think about AI music in our drone videos? scary, good, scary good? I thought it was funny, it began as a joke and then I found myself editing the whole video around this joke ;)

Monday, November 11, 2024

FPV Dream location: Mountain Dives with ARWing Pro – Gyroflow O3 vs. Raw, Shaky commented FPV!

Flew there a few times already, but never had such perfect conditions. Calm, golden hour and epic mountain scapes... First part is commented and NOT stabilized (since it was calm enough). I tried to see if flying fast in manual mode makes less wobble than acro mode on the dives - see how that went! Later I made a montage with music and stabilized footage (looks really buttery smooth and creamy to me ;)
Thanks Hover82 for once again being a great Chimera 7 chase target (with his yellow props he's good to spot). Chasing a 7" copter up the mountains is one of my fav things to do in FPV.

please check my PATREON DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS ●▬▬▬EQUIPMENT▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Filmed with: DJI O3, DJI Mic2 and edited with Premiere Pro ●▬▬▬♫MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● Just the Banjo - Pearce Roswell Lofi on the Bass - Daniel Fridell
I use EPIDEMIC SOUND, get your account here (affiliate): https://bit.ly/3p6OGE0

Wednesday, October 23, 2024

Googles 3 & O3 fixed? Lets test with a scary longrange dive...

If you got the Goggles 3 earlier this year when they announced O3 compatibility, you've been in the same situation (or worse). Either you were grounded because of the issues - or you lost your drone somwhere up there... Since their official "G3 O3 fix" firmware was out I trusted all the brave men who tested this and wasn't dissapointed. Range is good (even with stock antennas), image perfect, fit for my flat face - really nice, and finally I have goggles DVR files with baked in telemetry (no more work - I've done so much different things to embed overlay myself in the past...)
please check my PATREON
DO YOU WANT TO SEE MORE??? ►TOP VideosMountain DIVESProduct REVIEWS
Been to this location many times - and each flight was better than the one before. Luckily no crashes there (yet). Check out these selected videos: Chimera7 with Gopro10, last year Rekon6, 2 yrs Nostalgia! KK2 copter, 10yrs ago! ●▬▬▬♫MUSIC▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬▬● ANY-BODY (Instrumental Version) - Ooyy I use EPIDEMIC SOUND, get your account here (affiliate): https://bit.ly/3p6OGE0 ╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗ ║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ → http://goo.gl/szFJv ╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ (best way to support me!) ╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝ (¯`·.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.-RCSchim-.¸¸.·´¯`·.¸¸.·´¯)