I’m quite new to drones and very new to flight planning apps. I have been using Litchi and Virtual Litchi Mission (VLM), though am yet to fly a pre-programmed flight with my mini SE. I have been using trial and error on headings and gimbal pitch in Litchi, then using VLM to export virtual missions to Google Earth (GE), to see if I have a satisfactory flight plan. Typically, I don’t and I then repeat the process. So far this workflow has been very inefficient. If only I could do the flight planning with GEs 3D view, rather than Litchi’s 2D satellite view on mission hub. Some googling brought me to here
Planning Drone Missions in Google Earth
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDj86tm3p_sqh3VQDsvmGew/videos?view=0&sort=dd&flow=grid
I have not found any other app that offers to store GE’s camera data (Lat, Long, Alt, Pitch, Heading) as a waypoint. The idea being that the view you see in GE is the view your drone’s camera will see. It only works for the GE web app and not the desktop. I think this has the potential to be a great flight planning tool. Reading between the lines my guess is the developer had good intentions to further develop the app, but a lack of interest from the community discouraged him. The app is open source if someone else was interested in further developing it. The Chrome extension does not seem to be available, but I was able to get it on Firefox.
So far I have found that the DroneHub (DH) ‘Download Flight Plan’ button produces a csv file which can’t be opened by Litchi mission hub. ‘Download Virtual Flight’ produces a kml file which can be opened by Litchi, but the headings are very different. Opening the csv file in VLM gave warnings about: gimbal mode being disabled, and no headings being specified. VLM did produce a Virtual Mission for GE desktop, but the headings, and i believe pitch were wrong. So far not a smooth user experience but it’s potential is exciting.
I’m keen to increase awareness about this app, and to hear from others who have used it.
Planning Drone Missions in Google Earth
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDj86tm3p_sqh3VQDsvmGew/videos?view=0&sort=dd&flow=grid
I have not found any other app that offers to store GE’s camera data (Lat, Long, Alt, Pitch, Heading) as a waypoint. The idea being that the view you see in GE is the view your drone’s camera will see. It only works for the GE web app and not the desktop. I think this has the potential to be a great flight planning tool. Reading between the lines my guess is the developer had good intentions to further develop the app, but a lack of interest from the community discouraged him. The app is open source if someone else was interested in further developing it. The Chrome extension does not seem to be available, but I was able to get it on Firefox.
So far I have found that the DroneHub (DH) ‘Download Flight Plan’ button produces a csv file which can’t be opened by Litchi mission hub. ‘Download Virtual Flight’ produces a kml file which can be opened by Litchi, but the headings are very different. Opening the csv file in VLM gave warnings about: gimbal mode being disabled, and no headings being specified. VLM did produce a Virtual Mission for GE desktop, but the headings, and i believe pitch were wrong. So far not a smooth user experience but it’s potential is exciting.
I’m keen to increase awareness about this app, and to hear from others who have used it.
