Litchi Virtual Mission & Google Earth Usage

PeteTheJack · Jan 11, 2022

I keep getting this when I try to run a Virtual Mission. I've italicised what appears to be the error text, which is red in the app and starts at "OVER_QUERY_LIMIT". The YouTube videos I've watched have no mention of a subscription charge for Google Earth Pro.

Any info would be appreciated.

21:47:30 New CSV detected - litchi_mission
21:47:30 Altitudes in this csv file are in Feet
21:47:30 CSV File OK - 29 Waypoints Processed
21:47:30 Number of POI used for this mission is 3
21:47:30 Google Elevation API returned error
21:47:30 OVER_QUERY_LIMIT - You have exceeded your daily request quota for this API. If you did not set a custom daily request quota, verify your project has an active billing account: Google Maps Platform - Location and Mapping Solutions
21:47:30 Error Getting WP Ground Elevations from Google Earth
21:47:30 Error Correcting Waypoint Altitudes for reference

Tufargon · Jan 11, 2022

The ground elevation is a check mark in Litchi that has to be checked.
Where did you download Google Earth Pro? Maybe re download it and install.

Google Earth

Jagerbomb52 · Jan 11, 2022

Sounds like the API key that your google earth is using has gone past the number of requests for free use. That should not happen with a good copy of google earth.

PeteTheJack · Jan 13, 2022

Agustine said:
Sounds like the API key that your google earth is using has gone past the number of requests for free use. That should not happen with a good copy of google earth.

Thanks for the feedback. If I use it about four or five time, I get that message. I wouldn't have thought that was excessive. I also have to open Google Earth by right clicking and selecting "Run as administrator" or I get the error message below. I've removed LITCHI and Google Earth from the machine for the time being but I'll give it whirl when I have the enthusiasm to play with it again.

Pete.

namirda · Jan 18, 2022

PeteTheJack said:
Thanks for the feedback. If I use it about four or five time, I get that message. I wouldn't have thought that was excessive. I also have to open Google Earth by right clicking and selecting "Run as administrator" or I get the error message below. I've removed LITCHI and Google Earth from the machine for the time being but I'll give it whirl when I have the enthusiasm to play with it again.

Pete.

View attachment 141904

Hi Pete,

This error has been discussed a number of times - for example see post 826 and 827 in the VLM thread

By default, VLM uses my personal API key to access the Google Elevation API. Google provide a free daily quota which is usually enough for all of us and in order to protect my credit card I don't allow usage to exceed the free quota. If the daily quota is exceeded on any given day then you will either have to wait until the next day or else get your own API key from Google and use that.

Thanks

N

AZDave · Jan 18, 2022

namirda said:
Hi Pete,

This error has been discussed a number of times - for example see post 826 and 827 in the VLM thread

By default, VLM uses my personal API key to access the Google Elevation API. Google provide a free daily quota which is usually enough for all of us and in order to protect my credit card I don't allow usage to exceed the free quota. If the daily quota is exceeded on any given day then you will either have to wait until the next day or else get your own API key from Google and use that.

Thanks

N

Exactly this. A while back I was curious how the terrain information from Google Earth can accessed and discovered how the Elevation.api works. Up to a certain number of accesses per day the use of the API is free ... but it gets expensive pretty fast beyond that. I found a free open source database of terrain information (I don't remember the link), but it requires Linux and I wasn't able to tell how accurate it is.

pelermon · Jan 19, 2022

namirda said:
Hi Pete,

This error has been discussed a number of times - for example see post 826 and 827 in the VLM thread

By default, VLM uses my personal API key to access the Google Elevation API. Google provide a free daily quota which is usually enough for all of us and in order to protect my credit card I don't allow usage to exceed the free quota. If the daily quota is exceeded on any given day then you will either have to wait until the next day or else get your own API key from Google and use that.

Thanks

N

Could you give some instructions on exactly how to get our own
API key from Google and apply it to Google Earth Pro?
I did find this. Not sure if it is exactly what we need.

namirda · Jan 19, 2022

Google's instructions are probably better than anything I could write!

They describe how to get an elevation API key on this page. You will need to open a Billing Account (if you don't already have one) and provide your credit card details, create a project in the Cloud Console and then link your Billing Account to the project you created.

When you have got your new Elevation API key, go to VLM/Setup/Change Mission Settings/Google and paste it into the API field.

VLM will then append your API key to all requests to the Google Elevation API meaning that your billing account will be charged and not mine.

Note that Google provides a free daily quota which is probably more than sufficient for your needs.

Hope this helps

N

PeteTheJack · Jan 19, 2022

Thank you all so much for the info. I've not logged on for a few days so I've only just seen the suggestions. I'll give it another go soon.

pelermon · Jan 19, 2022

namirda said:
Google's instructions are probably better than anything I could write!

They describe how to get an elevation API key on this page. You will need to open a Billing Account (if you don't already have one) and provide your credit card details, create a project in the Cloud Console and then link your Billing Account to the project you created.

When you have got your new Elevation API key, go to VLM/Setup/Change Mission Settings/Google and paste it into the API field.

VLM will then append your API key to all requests to the Google Elevation API meaning that your billing account will be charged and not mine.

Note that Google provides a free daily quota which is probably more than sufficient for your needs.

Hope this helps

N

Well, that was painless. THANK YOU
I got my API key and put it into VLM/Setup/Change Mission Settings/Google. Works fine.

It does have
"Application restrictions option"
An application restriction controls which websites, IP addresses, or applications can use your API key. You can set one application restriction per key.
NoneHTTP referrers (web sites)
IP addresses (web servers, cron jobs, etc.)
Android apps
iOS apps
Do you recommend a restriction?

Also about how many missions can I run free in a day?
Is there a restriction you can set to limit uses before they start charging?

AZDave · Jan 19, 2022

pelermon said:
Well, that was painless. THANK YOU
I got my API key and put it into VLM/Setup/Change Mission Settings/Google. Works fine.

It does have
"Application restrictions option"
An application restriction controls which websites, IP addresses, or applications can use your API key. You can set one application restriction per key.
NoneHTTP referrers (web sites)
IP addresses (web servers, cron jobs, etc.)
Android apps
iOS apps
Do you recommend a restriction?

Also about how many missions can I run free in a day?
Is there a restriction you can set to limit uses before they start charging?

I think Google has changed their rules a few times in the last several years. The limit for free access was at one time 2500 accesses per day, but I think that may have changed.

Elevation API Usage and Billing | Google for Developers

developers.google.com

I seem to remember reading that there is still a range that is free, but I can't find it now.

namirda · Jan 20, 2022

AZDave said:
I think Google has changed their rules a few times in the last several years. The limit for free access was at one time 2500 accesses per day, but I think that may have changed.

Elevation API Usage and Billing | Google for Developers

developers.google.com

I seem to remember reading that there is still a range that is free, but I can't find it now.

Yes - there have been some changes in recent years.

Google currently charge $5 per 1000 requests to the Elevation API and allow $200 credit per billing account per month. This means a free limit of 40,000 (40k) requests per month per billing account.

In order to protect my credit card, I have set a quota on the default API Key used by VLM to 1000 requests per day so that even if this limit is hit every day, it should not exceed (hopefully!) the 40,000 free limit per month.

If you are using your own private API key, this could be one strategy to avoid unwanted bills from Google.

You can see here the graph produced by Google for the VLM API Key - indeed the limit has been hit a few times in the last 30 days which was the cause of PeteTheJack's problems

N

pelermon · Jan 20, 2022

THANK YOU for that information! I still can not get over the genius of integrating Litchi mission hub with Google Earth like that to run a virtual mission. Did YOU do that?
Now I basically have almost limitless access to it, and don't have to worry about tweaking missions multiple times to run out of uses.

PeteTheJack · Jan 30, 2022

namirda said:
Google's instructions are probably better than anything I could write!

They describe how to get an elevation API key on this page. You will need to open a Billing Account (if you don't already have one) and provide your credit card details, create a project in the Cloud Console and then link your Billing Account to the project you created.

When you have got your new Elevation API key, go to VLM/Setup/Change Mission Settings/Google and paste it into the API field.

VLM will then append your API key to all requests to the Google Elevation API meaning that your billing account will be charged and not mine.

Note that Google provides a free daily quota which is probably more than sufficient for your needs.

Hope this helps

N

The only thing I don't like about this is the chance of an account being hacked, sending multiple elevation requests, and running up horrendous charges. Just as used to happen with mobile phone bills before we could put a cap on them. The fact that I got booted out after just a few virtual flights makes me wonder if the software I had was hacked anyhow.

Thanks to all the information from you guys on this thread, I'll give it another go this evening.