Litchi - Waypoints Question

[Exphantomflyer]

The actions are just to start and stop recording. Everything was fine until around WP 12. When the weather improves I'll try again.

if the waypoints are set to action then you wont get curved turns, and why use an action, unless you are planning on only recording a short section of the run and want to take pictures as well, I would suggest hitting record at take off and stopping it when it reaches the last WP, also ive noticed that sun light into the front VPS can trigger a slow down or even a stop

 

[Mossiback]

...(As I've been writing this reply I just had an email from Litchi support saying they're not aware of such a bug and suggesting maybe obstacle avoidance detected something. At 100m high in clear air I think not.)

If facing a low sun, especially over water, obstacle avoidance can trigger to stop the Mavic.

 

[pgh1949]

I've found the video I shot on this mission and have uploaded it to Youtube.

Everything is fine up to about 5 minutes in when the drone slowly comes to a halt instead of continuing at cruising speed like the first part of the flight. I take manual control around the 6 minute point. Like I said earlier I hope to re-fly it tomorrow but with all actions turned off and Obstacle Avoidance disabled. I'll report back on what happens.

 

[Mossiback]

I think you can rule out obstacle avoidance because it was not facing the sun when it stoped.

 

[pgh1949]

I think you can rule out obstacle avoidance because it was not facing the sun when it stoped.

I agree totally, but Litchi support require me to turn it off before they'll consider doing any investigation. So when it stops raining I'll be doing some tests close to home with and without OA.

 

[pgh1949]

Due to the weather I've been unable to fly the full mission today but I did manage to do a series close to home. This showed the same problem last time I flew it a couple of days ago so I thought it would be a good test. I did a series of 3 flights, one with full control and OA turned on, one with OA on but switching off the controller to mimic Loss of Signal, and one with OA off and also turning off the controller.

And wouldn't you know! They all worked perfectly I'll try the full mission when the weather picks up. In the meantime, if you're interested here's a compilation of what I did today.

 

[pgh1949]

OK, the weather today was much better so I was able to re-fly the mission that gave me the speed loss problem at the weekend. This time I flew it with all actions removed from the waypoints and with Obstacle Avoidance turned off. The mission can be found here.

As I expected/feared this time there was no speed loss. Was it caused by Obstacle Avoidance originally? Who knows. As I said in the previous post the tests I did with and without OA yesterday were inconclusive.

However something else came up. I actually flew the mission twice this morning. The first time I was having trouble with focussing but that was probably due to condensation on the lens from flying in the early morning mist. But what was concerning was that at one point the gimbal went crazy going up and down for some seconds. So out I went again and this time it all went well until at the same point in the mission, around 7 minutes in, the gimbal did it again.

The flight log is uploaded here

and the video record of the flight is on Youtube here

So if anyone has got any ideas as to what was going on with the gimbal I'd love to hear. Apart from that it was a great flight!

 

[byedaway]

Unlike DJI where you have to record each waypoint and then fly it, Litchi lets you create the mission on your PC and then transfer it to your tablet/phone, this is a much better method, Litchi can also use Google map data to ensure that the waypoints remain at a safe height by using land data to elevate the height of each waypoint, this will stop you hitting the ground if it rises signifigantly

Litchi has a function called Interpolate, you can set the camera angle for each waypoint and Litchi will move the camera accordingly from waypoint to waypoint.

Ive done several videos on Litchi, here are a couple of them

Other videos on my channel as well

Here's something I'd like to be able to do: set the "Heading Mode" of the mission to "Towards Next Waypoint" then use the drawing tool to lay down a whole set of waypoints along a complex curve. Then I'd like to be able to change the mission's heading mode to "Waypoint Defined" without having all the waypoint headings reset from where they were under "Towards Next Waypoint." In other words, I'd like all the Waypoints to be initialized to point along their path, but I'd like to be able to be able to control the heading of each individually after that. Unfortunately as soon as you change the mission Heading Mode from Towards Next Waypoint to Waypoint Defined all the waypoints lose the initial heading they had (pointing at the next waypoint) and all point the same direction instead. What a pain!

 

[Exphantomflyer]

Here's something I'd like to be able to do: set the "Heading Mode" of the mission to "Towards Next Waypoint" then use the drawing tool to lay down a whole set of waypoints along a complex curve. Then I'd like to be able to change the mission's heading mode to "Waypoint Defined" without having all the waypoint headings reset from where they were under "Towards Next Waypoint." In other words, I'd like all the Waypoints to be initialized to point along their path, but I'd like to be able to be able to control the heading of each individually after that. Unfortunately as soon as you change the mission Heading Mode from Towards Next Waypoint to Waypoint Defined all the waypoints lose the initial heading they had (pointing at the next waypoint) and all point the same direction instead. What a pain!

just change them one at a time

 

[byedaway]

just change them one at a time

I know that's what I currently do. Still a pain in the *** with 20, 30, or more waypoints all laid out to define a nice smooth curve exactly where I want it.

 

[byedaway]

I know that's what I currently do. Still a pain in the *** with 20, 30, or more waypoints all laid out to define a nice smooth curve exactly where I want it.

Litchi got back to me (I'm using the messenger in Facebook to communicate with them). They confirmed that as soon as you change the mission heading mode to Waypoint Defined (WD) all the headings are reinitialized to 0 degrees (North). Also I asked about the last waypoint since there's no waypoint for it to point to. I asked specifically about what determines it when drawing waypoints with the pencil tool when the mission is in "To Next Waypoint" (TNW) heading mode. They said it always just points north. If we want to edit it, then you have to change the heading mode for the entire mission to WD and then all the headings in the mission will be reset to north as well. Although playing around with it, I think I figured out a way to make what I want to do work, although it's a pain so might only be useful when you have a bunch of waypoints:

1. Draw waypoints with mission heading set to TNW using the pencil tool in the Litchi app (no equivalent in the Hub unfortunately).

2. Save the mission.

3. Open the saved mission on your PC using the Litchi Mission Hub website.

4. Save the mission as a .csv file.

5. Import the .csv file back to Litchi Mission Hub. Now the mission heading setting is WD but all the waypoints (except the last one) point along the path as they were set with the pencil. And now you can edit individual waypoints (or batches of waypoints) and change their heading, etc. When you're done, save the result and it's available in the app.

However I found a new problem while doing this. Just using the Litchi app (not the Mission Hub), if I draw a set of waypoints with the pencil tool and then try to batch edit the gimbal pitch angle on all of them, it doesn't work. It seems to accept the angle you enter, but then it ignores it. However, right after you draw the points it brings up the batch editor for you with all the points selected. If you remember to set the pitch angle then, you're OK, but no going back and doing it later apparently, unless you do each waypoint individually. I have a question in to Litchi on this.

 

[iamdorian]

I now this is an OLD thread, but I am having issues also but set CURVES into the Waypoint mission. I am newbie, so the comments have been highly informative thanks to all! My issue was that the camera POI position staggers as the curves are encountered, so I assume it is attempting to relocate the POI at points along the math vectors of the splines used? The real issue I am wondering about (and I'll be sure to test my assumptions above are correct), is what issues or limitations have people found using Litchi (v2.6 or greater) when flying the new Mavic 2 Pro?? Thanks in advance!