As more people shoot pictures and videos from consumer drones, researchers in Singapore have found a way round the frustrating task of framing and taking photos while manually piloting the craft. More than 2.8 million consumer drones are expected to be sold this year, up from 2 million last year, says research firm Gartner. Most carry some kind of camera. Picture taken November 27, 2017. The user tells the drone to take photographs from different angles of the subject, such as a statue. Next, the shot is composed by moving objects on photos from a sample gallery.

"We want to enable more intuitive and natural interaction with the flying drone to take photos autonomously - even for the novice user who has not used drones before," said Ziquan Lan, one of four researchers behind the project.Their innovation, called XPose, works in several stages. The user tells the drone to take photographs from different angles of the subject, such as a statue. Next, the shot is composed by moving objects on photos from a sample gallery.