DJI FPV Simulator for all!

[snapdog]

From what I've read the DJI FPV drone will use the DJI Fly app. I checked and the latest app was up yesterday. During the last ten years or so of flying DJI Phantoms and DJI build your own drones, a couple of which I flew with early Fat Sharks. The FPV experience back then was not very good. I recently got a little Cinewhoop and feel that excitement again. It seems to me one way to get us Mavic folks interested and excited about their new FPV drone is let us have access to the simulator!!! Anyone else want a chance to experience FPV without a lot of money up front? We need to convince DJI, access to their new FPV simulator (especially on an iPad), would help drive their business. The current PC based DJI simulator does not work very well.

 

[Tufargon]

I wish.

 

[Kilrah]

They've done just that basically:

DJI Virtual Flight

Take off and feel the blood pumping through your veins. Introducing DJI Virtual Flight, a mobile app designed by the DJI flight simulator team for practising FPV flying techniques. With DJI Virtual Flight, you can double the fun by learning through practice. Put on the goggles, grab your remote...

apps.apple.com

Response in manual mode is quite off for now though.

 

[Tufargon]

Looks to be only for IOS at the moment and it also looks like you don't use your RC which to me seems useless.

 

[snapdog]

Thanks. Gave it a try. Hope they will allow you to connect with the Air 2 remote. I realize the mapping is somewhat different, but would be fun to try.

 

[Kilrah]

also looks like you don't use your RC which to me seems useless.

Yes you can use the RC and goggles of the FPV set.

 

[slup]

... It seems to me one way to get us Mavic folks interested and excited about their new FPV drone is let us have access to the simulator!!! ... without a lot of money up front?

In order to utilize a simulator you need a proper radio controller ... using game controllers, keyboards or what ever, will not work at all.

If you seriously consider going for FPV acro flying ... first buy the radio (you can sell it later if it turns out that this wasn't anything for you) ... the you pay up like $23-25 for a good simulator like Velocidrone (which can handle older computers much better than Liftoff) .. & start to get in to it.

 

[PinpointUAVS]

Response in manual mode is quite off for now though.

I tried it this morning and experienced the same issue

 

[snapdog]

Tried DJI's Virtual Flight simulator on my Mini 5 iPad. Works kinda okay as a standalone. Just for the heck of it plugged in my Air 2 controller, does not work. Maybe they will fix that some day so those of us flying other DJI drones with the Fly app, can give it a shot. I think, based on my software development experience, it wouldn't take much to remap the software to work with our controllers. Just saying

 

[JoostGT3]

I tried it this morning and experienced the same issue

How so? At the moment, I am spending my evenings practicing in the simulator for manual mode. Are you saying it behaves mich differen

 

[Kilrah]

It "floats" a lot in the sim, like if gravity was way too low

 

[slup]

It "floats" a lot in the sim, like if gravity was way too low

Yep ... a floaty simulator is devastating for a proper training, you will not get a grip around how the gravity affects the quad. It's probably due to a too low frame rate in the sim. In order to improve that try to turn down the graphics if it's possible.

Anyone that have tried to hook up the new DJI FPV controller to Liftoff or Velocidrone running on a computer?

 

[JoostGT3]

Oh crap! I guess I'll just have to try it for real then one of these days. I run an iPhone 12 mini and it runs flawlessly, no issues and didn't have the feeling that it was floating much... You got me all nervous for that first time in manual mode then!

 

[PinpointUAVS]

Yep ... a floaty simulator is devastating for a proper training, you will not get a grip around how the gravity affects the quad. It's probably due to a too low frame rate in the sim. In order to improve that try to turn down the graphics if it's possible.

Anyone that have tried to hook up the new DJI FPV controller to Liftoff or Velocidrone running on a computer?

That’s what it felt like to me. The controls seems slightly delayed as well, which is very odd given I was controlling it directly from my phone. My frame rate is 60-61 consistently. I won’t see my drone until next week so it’s phone only until then.

 

[slup]

... My frame rate is 60-61 consistently.

Velocidrone recommends to have a constant FPS preferably above 200 but as a very minimum a tad above 100.

60 is way to low & it will give you the feeling that you're flying with less gravity... meaning that the "hang time" in air will be to long & give you more time to react. Once flying for real you will be surprised when the drone falls to the ground like dropping a rock.

 

[Kilrah]

That should have nothing to do with the frame rate, they likely just got a value wrong somewhere. Or a few, because that's not the only thing that feels wrong... control response is fast in pitch/yaw but throttle sems to lag, climb speed seems OK but response to applying throttle isn't. Probably wrong weight/thrust?

Also the yaw/roll coordination seems very different at the same camera angle.

If anything the real aircraft feels much better and is easier to fly, so at least the errors are in the better direction...

(these remarks are all about unrestricted manual mode)

 

[slup]

That should have nothing to do with the frame rate...

A too slow frame rate in a simulator have a great effect when it comes to hang times & floatiness ... just play with figures, if FPS is 1 instead of 60 how do you think that would feel? If other settings also are off doesn't matter.

 

[Kilrah]

It would be unusably laggy, but nothing to do with the floatiness we see here and any gravity effect. If the model is programmed to accelerate at X m/s^2 towards the ground it'll do exactly the same move over 1 second whether one frame or 60 is displayed, just you can't see what happens inbetween if you're at 1fps.

 

[slup]

It would be unusably laggy, but nothing to do with the floatiness we see here and any gravity effect. If the model is programmed to accelerate at X m/s^2 towards the ground it'll do exactly the same move over 1 second whether one frame or 60 is displayed, just you can't see what happens inbetween if you're at 1fps.

So you mean that what both Liftoff & Velocidrone says in their instructions is incorrect & what I feel & see when using Velocidrone and compare a frame rate above 200 & one down to 60 is totally wrong?

Both these well known FPV simulator creators explicit tells users to throttle down all graphics in order to get a correct feel without floatiness and then slowly rise the graphics until a acceptable feel no longer can be maintained.

I don't have a clue how DJI have coded their simulator ... & I imagine that you don't know either, but as it works like this in other more well-known simulators it's not far fetched that the DJI one works in a similar way.

 

[PinpointUAVS]

Velocidrone recommends to have a constant FPS preferably above 200 but as a very minimum a tad above 100.

60 is way to low & it will give you the feeling that you're flying with less gravity... meaning that the "hang time" in air will be to long & give you more time to react. Once flying for real you will be surprised when the drone falls to the ground like dropping a rock.

Yea that’s exactly what is happening. That’s the downside of a mobile based simulator. Many mobile devices are limited to 60Hz displays, essentially capping effective FPS.