What is the Zoom setting?
The DJI Mavic 3 Thermal (M3T) features a hybrid zoom system combining optical and digital zoom on its RGB camera, offering up to 56× zoom (7× optical, 8× digital). Its thermal camera supports up to 28× digital zoom.
When carrying out flights for Sitemark, the drone should be operating in 'Area Route' mode. The following support in this article will assume you are flying in this mode.
When you create your flight mission, you will be asked to enter the drone being used and the sensors to collect the imagery. They need to be blue to record the data. In the image below both RGB and IR will be recorded to the SD card in the drone.
Screen Explanation
When the drone is capturing data in Area Route mode, the controller screen will look like this when viewing the RGB Wide sensor.
Below gives an explanation of the screen.
When viewing in IR, the screen will look like this.
Even though the IR says 2.0x, this is the default zoom setting, there is no 1.0x in IR.
The IR sensor needs to be 2.0x.
How does the RGB Zoom work?
When in Area Route mode and a flight has commenced, it is not possible to change the RGB camera from RGB Wide to RGB zoom. If you tap the zoom icon on the screen or press the C1 button on the rear of the controller, then you will get a warning on screen which says:
"Mapping task in progress. Unable to switch to visible light camera."
The warning displayed below.
If you can switch between the RGB Wide and RGB Zoom sensors mid flight, then please update to the latest firmware.
How does the IR Zoom work?
⚠️ It is possible to switch between the different IR zoom levels mid flight. ⚠️
If you change the zoom level mid flight, then this will impact the overlaps of the thermal images and you will end up having missing data, which could result in a re-flight being needed.
The IR zoom level is cycled through the following zoom levels: 2x, 4x, 7x, 14x and 28x.
This is done by pressing the IR button on the right of the screen in the red box indicated below.
What settings should be used?
When creating the flight on the controller, if you are flying a Thermography or Thermography Pro operation both RGB and IR should be selected.
The RGB Wide sensor will be selected automatically and it will be 1.0x.
The IR sensor needs to be set to 2.0x.