Is there a data field for "drone heading" in Litchi flight data?

[marklyn]

I have some flights where the drone is flying perpendicular to the direction it's actually moving in (ie: drone is moving north but gimbal direction is west).
The heading field seems to only show which direction the drone is "pointing" to regardless as to which direction the AC is actually moving in. Is there another field I'm overlooking that would tell me the compass direction the drone is moving in or is this a custom field that would require being set up?

 

[lisadoc]

I have some flights where the drone is flying perpendicular to the direction it's actually moving in (ie: drone is moving north but gimbal direction is west).
The heading field seems to only show which direction the drone is "pointing" to regardless as to which direction the AC is actually moving in. Is there another field I'm overlooking that would tell me the compass direction the drone is moving in or is this a custom field that would require being set up?

I'm assuming you mean for mission planning purposes, as you can always see the direction of travel when flying. For missions though, I don't think it exists in Litchi. If you needed to know the compass direction of travel, between two waypoints, the easiest way to figure it out is to have the heading 0 degrees for waypoint 1, create your waypoint 2, and then rotate your heading until it's pointing straight along that line. Your heading degree then will be your course degree. Once you know that, you can change the heading to whatever you want.

 

[marklyn]

lisadoc, not for mission planning purposes, but post production of video when I'm adding gauges in racerender. I'd like a compass showing gimbal direction and a compass showing actual drone flight direction.

 

[lisadoc]

lisadoc, not for mission planning purposes, but post production of video when I'm adding gauges in racerender. I'd like a compass showing gimbal direction and a compass showing actual drone flight direction.

No clue then. I'm not sure what data Litchi flight logs spits out, as I never look at those logs. Maybe someone else will be able to help you.

 

[sar104]

lisadoc, not for mission planning purposes, but post production of video when I'm adding gauges in racerender. I'd like a compass showing gimbal direction and a compass showing actual drone flight direction.

Aircraft heading (yaw_deg_) and gimbal direction (gimbalYawRaw) are both in the log. Aircraft course you will need to compute from other fields:

course = atan2(velocityY_mph_, velocityX_mph_)

 

[marklyn]

Sar, you're obviously more of a veteran in this area that I am. Thanks for the calculations and I'll see how/if I can get that done in RaceRender. Their documentation and examples are vague but I might be able to figure it out. I think their data calculations fields (custom fields) are more basic, but I'll see. Thanks though

 

[sar104]

Sar, you're obviously more of a veteran in this area that I am. Thanks for the calculations and I'll see how/if I can get that done in RaceRender. Their documentation and examples are vague but I might be able to figure it out. I think their data calculations fields (custom fields) are more basic, but I'll see. Thanks though

Yes - the atan2 function is a 2-parameter conditional arctan function that may not be available in that software, so you might need to process the data elsewhere. There is no simple function to compute course from vNorth and vEast.

Atan2 - Wikipedia

 

[marklyn]

Thank you for explaining that. I was about to research atan2 and your explanation saved me a bit of time.
It sounds likely that I won't be able to compute the drone flight compass direction vs the gimbal compass direction. No big deal, I just assumed there was a fairly easy way.
I thought it would look interesting on a post production flight video.
Oddly enough though there is a website that I occasionally use that somehow does this. When you upload the flight data csv file to the website the drone is represented by a diamond with a dot on one of the points that represents the gimbal direction. I like it because it shows the direction of the drone is flying and the direction of the gimbal.
I've asked the person who owns/manages the site how he did that since ultimately that's kind of what I'm wanting to do but he said he didn't know or something (brush off maybe)...
The site I'm talking about is here:
Flight Replay - Flight Log Visualizer