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Litchi tips and tricks - please submit yours

marklyn

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I've been using Litchi since the first month I bought my Mavic and use it almost exclusively. I'm approaching 1 year ownership and hundreds of flights but still learning the nuances of flight tricks. I thought I'd start a thread with Litchi tips and tricks in hopes that others (and me) can improve flight and videography skills. Hope to keep this thread Litchi centric if possible and I hope it encourages some folks to submit their own refined tips.

I'll start with three that I hope are worthy. More to come if there is interest.

1. Simple orbit spiral. Use Litchi's orbit and set up an orbit (height, POI, speed, etc) but set the height fairly high, maybe 300' and as the drone gets to the set height of 300' and makes one revolution I hold the stick down so it descends at my desired speed until I get to where I want (maybe 100'). This creates a nice corkscrew effect of your POI. Obviously you should know your surroundings and make sure your descent is clear of any tall structures in the spiral down.

2. Waypoint action: rotate aircraft (multiple actions): It is a nice effect the set up a waypoint with several waypoint actions to rotate the aircraft in multiple steps. For example if I want a landscape/horizon 360 degree shot I can set up a waypoint action #1 to rotate to 0 degrees, pause 2 seconds, waypoint action #2 to rotate to 90 degrees, pause 2 seconds, and keep repeating until you're at full circle (360 degrees). Don't forget your initial gimbal angle and you can use whatever increments and pause times. Also don't forget that you can't use waypoint actions on curved path missions (only straight path). I've gotten some nice horizon shots this way.

3. Easier flight track sync: If you use a post production software like Dashware or Racerender to overlay telemetry data on your video sometimes it's hard to sync the video with the telemetry. I always start my first waypoint with some waypoint actions like gimbal angle changes or aircraft rotation changes. Then if there is a problem with the video & telemetry sync it's easier to overlay something like a compass or gimbal pitch display to see exactly when it changes and to sync it at those spots. *note* even in curved path missions you can still set waypoint actions on the first and last waypoint!

Hope this helps someone and inspires other Litchi tips/tricks.
 
Great idea for a thread.

1. Simple orbit spiral. Use Litchi's orbit and set up an orbit (height, POI, speed, etc) but set the height fairly high, maybe 300' and as the drone gets to the set height of 300' and makes one revolution I hold the stick down so it descends at my desired speed until I get to where I want (maybe 100'). This creates a nice corkscrew effect of your POI. Obviously you should know your surroundings and make sure your descent is clear of any tall structures in the spiral down.

Here's one I've got that I've used many times that is "similar" but not exactly as yours. It's a descending spiral with a focus on the POI at the center of the spiral at ground level:
Hendo_Spiral_DOWN.jpg

The difference is this one is all pre-programmed and easily repeatable if needed. But I like your idea and plan to use it as well :)
 
Wow. exciting thread. I guess ppl are keeping their tips secret or there is a small Litchi audience here.
 
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pre-programmed and easily repeatable
I love this one, how did you set this up as a program? is it a manually created waypoint mission with curved waypoint paths setting out the 3D spiral?
 
Another thing I do is to turn on the feature to automatically record upon flight start. Even with the additional video, it's not "wasted" because before I get in position to start the mission I can use that footage to help sync with the Airdata or Litchi (or Mavic) csv file when I'm overlaying data (RaceRender or Dashware). I usually rotate the AC or do a gimbal up/down, that makes it easier to spot in syncing video with telemetry data.
 
I've used Python to create csvs that can be imported into Litchi Mission Hub, complete with waypoint actions.

There's no neat interface, I just edit the script as required, but the results are pretty good.

Essentially if you can write a simple procedural script that can create a series of [x,y,z] points, then it's easy enough to convert those values to lat long, and then spit out a csv in the right format.

I've used mine to create flat flightpaths for composite aerial photography (i.e. only [x,y] points).
 
Great idea for a thread.



Here's one I've got that I've used many times that is "similar" but not exactly as yours. It's a descending spiral with a focus on the POI at the center of the spiral at ground level:
View attachment 41012

The difference is this one is all pre-programmed and easily repeatable if needed. But I like your idea and plan to use it as well :)
Very nice. How about sharing that one.
 
Great idea for a thread.



Here's one I've got that I've used many times that is "similar" but not exactly as yours. It's a descending spiral with a focus on the POI at the center of the spiral at ground level:
View attachment 41012

The difference is this one is all pre-programmed and easily repeatable if needed. But I like your idea and plan to use it as well :)
Come on BigAl, do tell how you did this one.
 
For us non-knowing and very interested it would be so great to get a glimpse in how that workflow works - i never used python so i really have no idea how to put that in. It sounds easy.

Could you please share that?

I desperately try to understand how to find a little workflow that is exactly THIS.
But no idea how to set that up. Please assist!
 
Spirals in Litchi. I have been playing around with this:- Mission Utilities for Litchi You can create a spiral using google earth, tell the website how your start and end heights and how many revolutions, Import into Litchi, and view the mission in Google Earth! No programming necessary. You can use a fixed POI or have a static gimbal angle. You can do two types of spiral - a constant width one, or one the widens or narrows as you increase or decrease height.

The instructions for the fixed gimbal are simple but not in the notes. Default is poi with fixed height. I have been in contact with the developer who was most helpful.

Unfortunately I haven't flown the missions yet as it's dark when I get home from work, and this weekend we have Storm Dennis to contend with. I will post results when I have flown them.
 
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The first and most important tip I would like to add is, "Take your time!"

Relying on software is nice, but software can fail. In those cases, you need to know how to react. Start with small missions clear in VLOS. Simple actions etc. Check the result, ajust the flightpattern and repeat the flight. It will take time and you might have to recharge your batteries a few times, but you will get more familiar with the system.

I have planned a series of test for the end of march / beginning of april, slowly increasing distances, altitudes etc. and intend to post the preps, the flights and the results in one or more videos in youtube. As soon as I am done with the editing, I will publish the links in the forum.
 
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Spirals in Litchi. I have been playing around with this:- Mission Utilities for Litchi You can create a spiral using google earth, tell the website how your start and end heights and how many revolutions, Import into Litchi, and view the mission in Google Earth! No programming necessary. You can use a fixed POI or have a static gimbal angle. You can do two types of spiral - a constant width one, or one the widens or narrows as you increase or decrease height.

This pretty easy in Dronelink since it has the option to set both the starting and ending altitudes, radii, drone heading and number of revolutions. Somethings are easier in Litchi and some are easier in Dronelink which is free for non-commercial use.
 
This pretty easy in Dronelink since it has the option to set both the starting and ending altitudes, radii, drone heading and number of revolutions. Somethings are easier in Litchi and some are easier in Dronelink which is free for non-commercial use.

I have tried DroneLink, but the problem I had with it was I don't think my iPad mini 4 has enough processing power to drive the drone. It just sat there and hovered giving me an error message that I later looked up, and the answer is apparently buy a better tablet or try shortening the mission / waiting to see if it caught up. Well, the mission was simple in that I just wanted it to spiral round a tower a couple of times. I wasn't trying to run some big, complex mission which I understand it can.

It's a bit of a learning curve too. I'm more than prepared for a learning curve as I took on Premiere Pro to edit footage with, but my initial run rather put me off.
 

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