Litchi Waypoints: Gimbal Not Smoothly Pitching Between WPs

[willryan042]

Hey guys,

I've been creating missions in Litchi to shoot some timelapses. The routes are two waypoints a couple hundred feet apart, mavic ever-so-slightly rotating and moving between the two points at 0.3mph.

I've been trying to have the gimbal subtly move as well, but haven't had much luck. For example, I'll set WP1 to interpolate, -30 degrees. Then I set WP2 to interpolate, 0 degrees.

It's my understanding that the gimbal should smoothly transition between -30 and 0 degrees between the points. But as it is now, the gimbal stays at whatever pitch UNTIL it reaches the next waypoint. Then it immediately jumps to the next pitch.

So it starts at WP1 with -30 degree gimbal pitch, flies the route as expected, but the gimbal stays at -30 degrees until it reaches WP2 and jerks up to 0 degrees.

Am I misunderstanding Litchi's abilities with this? Can it not automate a smooth gimbal pitch? Or am I doing something wrong?

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

Do you have the it set to INTERPOLATE? Both WP1 and WP2 would need to be set to INTERPOLATE.

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

Here you go, this explains it better than I did above, this is from the Litchi help section on their website:
Gimbal Pitch: Choose between "Disabled" where the gimbal pitch control will be manual, "Focus POI" where Litchi will automatically control the gimbal pitch to keep the selected POI in the center of the frame (blue markers), or "Interpolate" where you can specify the gimbal pitch angle at this waypoint. For "Interpolate" to work, the previous or next waypoint need to be set to "Interpolate" as well. Litchi will then automatically adjust the gimbal pitch angle to start and end at the specified angles, and smoothly transition while travelling between the two waypoints.

 

[willryan042]

Thanks for the reply. I've gone through the manual (probably the same one you grabbed that from) which is why I'm confused.

My route is only 2 or 3 waypoints, and I was sure that ALL of them were set to interpolate. I also saw that the gimbal pitch can get screwy if the drone disconnects from the controller, but that never happened during my flights (short flights of only a couple hundred feed well within eyesight).

Not sure if something screwy is happening with my iPad or the app, maybe I'll try on my phone. I might also play around with using the POI option to accomplish what I'd like to do instead of interpolate.

 

[smartynov]

I have the same problem with Litchi. Have to fly with fixed angle, which is not enough sometimes. Did you manage to find any solution?

 

[namirda]

You guys really should give Virtual Litchi Mission a try. It will show you what to expect from your mission before you put your drone in the air. Saves a lot of wasted missions!

See this thread Virtual Litchi Mission

N

 

[smartynov]

You guys really should give Virtual Litchi Mission a try. It will show you what to expect from your mission before you put your drone in the air. Saves a lot of wasted missions!

See this thread Virtual Litchi Mission

N

As I found out, the problem is that for Mavic Pro (and other DJI drones) gimbal pitch can't be programmed in waypoints. Litchi and similar apps control it in real-time sending commands from your device. A weak signal, a glitch in a phone, or deviation in gps all results in not so smooth moving of gimbal.

This is a problem with Mavic firmware and protocol. I'm afraid VLM would not be able to resolve it in any case.

 

[Simmo]

Could you not put a poi in and change its height? Effectively the gimbal would have to pitch to keep 'looking' at the POI?

 

[Aerial-Pixel]

Here is what I do, I set the POI Height at the point above the ground first, then create my waypoints, each of the waypoints will be looking at the POI unless you change it. Here is an example of one I did:

This is the final product of the Litchi Mission: