Litchi Help/Support Forum.

[spudster]

Just trying out to see if I can create some missions but have some questions. Is there a Litchi help or support forum to get questions answered? Litchi has a forum but it seems it is never used by anyone. Thanks!

 

[slup]

You have this rather complete help page from Litchi to start with --> Help - Litchi

What questions do you have?

 

[Gagey52]

I found the easiest way to get start was to do a course on Udemy with Richard Carpentier. Cost me $14A, got me through the basics of flight planning with Litchi. Hope this helps.
Regards

 

[spudster]

You have this rather complete help page from Litchi to start with --> Help - Litchi

What questions do you have?

I have read the help files and have created a few "test" missions just to see how the software works. Have even run them in Google Earth to see the flight path. What I don't understand, or maybe I'm just missing it, is how you set the gimbal so you know what you are actually taking a photo/video of. Yes, percentages of angle can be set but that still doesn't tell me what will be in the photo.

On the other hand Dronelink has dozens of videos and FAQs that explain every little part of the Dronelink software and how it operates. It is fairly simple to adjust the gimble to get the exact photo/video that you want.

 

[slup]

...maybe I'm just missing it, is how you set the gimbal so you know what you are actually taking a photo/video of..

One way is to put in POI's & define their height ... in that way you can either lock both yaw & gimbal pitch to that during videoing between waypoints, or just taking a photo.

 

[spudster]

Yes, but that still does not show me what will show up in the photo/video. The best that can be done is guess on what height the POI should be used and hope the horizon is where you want in the photo/video. As a general rule I like the horizon to be about 1/3 down from the top of the frame unless I'm shooting a sunset/sunrise where I want the horizon 2/3 down from the top. In these cases what height should I set the POI?

The only thing I thought of it to pause the drone for a few seconds before taking the photo or starting the video so the gimble can be manually adjusted... not really what I would call an autonomous mission.

 

[slup]

Yes, but that still does not show me what will show up in the photo/video...

Have you tested Virtual Litchi Mission? You find the thread about it here --> Virtual Litchi Mission

Make your mission in Litchi Mission hub ... or in the Virtual Litchi Mission window, set all parameters together with your cameras FOV & test fly it by exporting the a .csv to Google Earth.

Here the Virtual Litchi Mission looks with the settings opened ...


And here a view from the above mission played in Google Earth ...

 

[spudster]

I have seen that. It just makes for a messy multistep process.

1 Create (or edit) your mission with what you think is correct.
2 Export the mission
3 Import it into GE then view it
4 If required go back to step 1 to make any edits that are desired (repeat as needed)

 

[TnDronePilot]

Hey Spudster, I've had Dronelink for a while and appreciated the many tutorials that covered everything but I just bought Litchi for my MA2 and am a little frustrated too with setting the gimbal exactly where I want it. I wish I could adjust the angle and see it right away in the map itself but maybe I'm too early into learning how it all works.

I did however run across an informative Litchi tutorial last night that may help you out. It's worth watching the whole video but I'm providing a specific link to where he discusses gimbal adjustment and field of view. It's dated as he mentions in the beginning that Litchi didn't work with DJI Fly app but, the information still works with whatever app/drone Litchi now works with.

Outside of the gimbal issue, he mentions how through testing, he found out the default Litchi/GE FOV for his drone was not accurate and shows you a visual comparison and how he fixed it. Why I mention this is because it is possible that the gimbal angle you are messing with is never perfect because that default FOV angle is not really what your specific drone is seeing. Now this may not really help with your Litchi frustrations but hopefully it will help. Also, he mentions "VLM" which is a Virtuual Litchi Mission and I'll post the link he provided just in case you're not running it.

I myself am very confused with the altitude settings where you can select/de-select "Above Ground". I'm assuming I want to have that selected so I know how far the drone is off of the ground. However unless I'm working harder instead of smarter, I don't really know the true height of something unless I go into GE and hover over the building. Then that displays the height in MSL so I have to convert it for my area which is almost 900ft MSL. So unless I'm going about this all wrong, it's a lot of back and forth between maps and apps (or programs) which gets annoying. This was also how I did it in DroneLink. Maybe I'll enlighten you with my link below and someone will enlighten me with my issue.

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VLM

Virtual Litchi Mission

Download latest version here : Virtual Litchi Mission V2.8.4 --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VLM Frequently Asked Questions Problems Getting Started Q) VLM does not start properly – startup sound and splash...

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