I love the Terrain Data functionality in AP that we now have, but it would be great if Mission Planner were able to display the tile coverage currently available on SD card, and also allow for an area to be selected on the map for pre-loading those tiles onto SD for later offline missions, in remote areas say (where no internet connection or ground station is available. Has anyone else considered this functionality and its benefits?
Thanks again Michael for your great work with MP - tremendous effort. Best wishes as always, Paul
if I recall correctly, if terrain is enabled, and the mission is uploaded while still having internet, the AP will request all the tiles it needs
Indeed, that is correct, and tested this morning. I think though that having a feature allowing us to select discrete map areas and the ability to pre-load on this basis would be useful. Also having the ability to query which areas are already loaded would be beneficial.
currently the only way to test this is for MP to request individual points, and let the autopilot respond, there is no other way to see what is cached on the autopilot itself
I see - so this would take some dev work in AP to become a possibility?
yes dev both sides, dev on AP, and dev on MP to show that info
Would you consider it a useful piece of functionality Michael? One worth pursuing?
hard to say, depends on how much it would be used and by how many people.
its a time vs reward scenario.
This would definitely be useful. One of the biggest reasons I switched to ardupilot was the terrain following feature especially in RTH.I had a previous autopilot rth into the back of a hill.I dont generally fly auto missions but have to create fake missions to get the terrain data. The biggest problem is I travel and fly quite aw ways around. Sometimes without previouly plannig too.Without a way to see a way if I have terrsain data in mp while not in wifi range I am essentially flying blind.With the relatively small size of the terrain files I would love to be able to download entire regions or states and never have to worry about it.
Did you figure out how to pre-load terrain data?
You can use this to download terrain data:
https://terrain.ardupilot.org/
However I’m still not certain on using it properly - I’ve got one copter that is happy with terrain data on SD card even if the telemetry is connected or not - and another quad that’s rarely happy with terrain data on the SD card doesnt have telemetry and doesnt appear to use the terrain data that is pre-loaded.