I'm working on a school project this semester and I want to try to program a Phantom 3 Standard to do some simple flight paths. Prior to acquiring the Phantom 3, I was playing around with Parrot's 2.0 AR Drone. I was able to write up a couple files using javascript and Node.js in order to help me program the drone for autonomous flight. I would like to do something similar with the Phantom 3, but it seems a lot more complex than just downloading something like Node.js (You have to sign up to be a developer on DJI's website and I don't think the SDK is easy enough for me to understand).
Does anyone have any recommendations on how to do this? Like I said, it would be optimal if programming the Phantom 3 could be as easy as it was to program the AR 2.0, which would be downloading something like node.js and running some scipts. Thank you!
You can choose to program for iOS or Android. Your mobile device will plug into the RC, and will be able to control the UAV as long as the RC controller is in autonomous mode. I will talk about the Android code, as I haven't used the iOS SDK, but I assume it's similar.
Creating a developer account is simple. You just put your information in on their website. The form only takes a minute to fill out. This data will be used in your manifest file. When your app starts for the first time, it will connect to DJI servers to verify your account.
The Android project has a sample application, which can get you started. You can download DJI's sample, and be up and running in 30 minutes (provided you know how to make Android apps).
In my own opinion, the DJI SDKs are EXTREMELY buggy. I have been using the Android SDK for over a year, and have briefly used their onboard SDK. Their code is sloppy, documentation incomplete, and support is non-existent. So, if you end up using DJI's SDK, you can be up and running in a short period of time, but expect that the only help you'll get is on stackoverflow.