Is There a Way to See Yaw Angle Onscreen While in Flight?

flyingdog · Oct 20, 2023

Bear with me, I'm new. First little fledgling flight today.

I have a mini 3 (non-pro) and am interested in doing panoramas. I chose the mini 3 because I can set the camera vertical which will get a bigger sky.

I'm mainly just interested in single plane ~180 degree panoramas. In vertical the angle of view isn't very big and to get overlap takes a lot of shots. If I did my math right for 50% overlap I need to take a picture every 8.5 degrees.

I see I can make the compass visible in the corner, but it is pretty small and nothing more than a pointer. I wasn't flying very high and though just looking at the drone and screen I could gauge things pretty well, but when I went to stitch the images there wasn't overlap. It was my first flight too, but..

I know the drone keeps track of the yaw angle. I'm just using the fly app. I don't know if it accepts plugins or not. I have heard there is third party software as well. I was thinking if I could display just the current yaw angle on screen along with the image I could use that.

I'd like to take the pictures sooner rather than later as I may run out of suitable weather pretty quickly. I have seen people talk about manual panos are better and some spoke of doing if vertically as well, but I really haven't found any clear instructions how to do it with any precision other than someone said to turn the grid on. I did see how to do that, but today while flying I couldn't see how to do it, maybe I have to do that before I take off.

So if anyone knows if there is or definitely isn't a way to display yaw angle I'd like to know as well as any other information on how to do this.

Thanks in advance

Meta4 · Oct 21, 2023

flyingdog said:
I really haven't found any clear instructions how to do it with any precision other than someone said to turn the grid on. I did see how to do that, but today while flying I couldn't see how to do it, maybe I have to do that before I take off.

You have to do it while the drone is connected.
After that it should be there each time you power up.

Once you are seeing the grid, it's easy to compose, click, rotate the drone, check composition, click etc, etc.

And stitch

flyingdog · Oct 21, 2023

OK thanks. I'v also learned up a third party app Litchi. So will look into that a little too.

akdrone · Oct 21, 2023

I'm not sure Litchi works with the mini 3 but maybe. The grid is the only way to do manual panos that I know about and I use it a lot. I over lap 1/3 for each shot and move the view so one tic tac toe corner moves to the previous and sometimes I will move over as many as 8 or more positions and then go up or down a row and back across. You can create some huge, amazing panoramas. I primarily use it with my 7x on my Mav3Pro which doesn't do all the kinds of panos automatically.

Mrprop365 · Oct 21, 2023

akdrone said:
I'm not sure Litchi works with the mini 3 but maybe. The grid is the only way to do manual panos that I know about and I use it a lot. I over lap 1/3 for each shot and move the view so one tic tac toe corner moves to the previous and sometimes I will move over as many as 8 or more positions and then go up or down a row and back across. You can create some huge, amazing panoramas. I primarily use it with my 7x on my Mav3Pro which doesn't do all the kinds of panos automatically.

What software do you use for stitching?

flyingdog · Oct 21, 2023

I will probably use affinity photo, I also have the no longer supported Microsoft stitching app, I think it is called ICE. Maybe something else. I have used the Microsoft app in the past and have more recently purchased Affinity, although it didn't do what I wanted it for, but now that I have it I might as well use it. Generally I used Linux and GIMP for graphics and it doesn't have the ability to stitch or hasn't in the past.

Turns out Litchi doesn't work with a mini 3 yet anyway. They have a beta, but it doesn't sound like it does stitching.

I'm sort of making it harder than it has to be using the vertical, I can just use it in landscape and take two rows or pictures. The overlaps will be easier too.

Litchi does sound like it does a good job with panos though, so maybe when they get it done I'll try it. It is to have a new name and be a new separate app.