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orbit without point of interest?

tacotim

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Is there a function to have the drone fly in a perfect circle without a point of interest? If it's not possible in DJI go 4, is there another app that could do it?
 
First post in 3 years... WELCOME (sort of ) :)

Without the POI how do you tell it where to orbit and how large of an orbit?

I'm not saying it's not possible (I've not seen it personally) but it seems like that's an important part of the puzzle.
 
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Ha! Thanks for the welcome! longtime lurker here. I recognize that what I'm trying to do is unusual, but here's what I want to accomplish. I want to paint a circle of light in the sky over a lake for a long exposure photo I'd be shooting with a camera from the ground at night. The problem is, at night above the lake, there's nothing for the mavic to "grab on to" as a POI.

One possible solution that I haven't tried yet:
Go to the lake in the day and see if I can get the mavic to grab on to something (some floating debris or something), record the flight, then come back at night and have it fly the recorded path.

But of course I'd be delighted if anyone has a more elegant solution, that wouldn't require a day time trip.
 
With LITCHI, you can define the POI by simply flying to where you want the center of the circle to be, then press a button the define the POI at that location. Then you can fly any distance from that POI and fly a circle.

I've been wanting to do this very thing for a long while (was going to last month, but strong winds wrecked my plans). My biggest question is: once you have your POI and am flying around in a circle, what's the best way to keep the bird pointed at the camera (your ground-based, tripod-mounted camera capturing the circling drone with light)?

I know this is done as we've seen many examples, but I wonder if there is a way to a) define a POI to fly a circle around while also b) defining a POI for the aircraft to stay pointed at.

I know that the Mavic 2 Pro can do both, but I don't know that it can do both at the same time.

Chris
 
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Thanks Chris, I'll give litchi a try. In terms of the directional problem you describe, I 3d designed and printed a translucent shroud to place over the built in LEDs on the mavic 2, so the light should be visible to the camera no matter what direction the drone is facing. We'll see how it works in practice.
 
Good idea! I hope you share your results here.

Your idea of scoping things out in daylight might still be good, even with LITCHI, you know, it check out what it might run into in it's orbit in darkness.

Also, you might be able to program the location of the POI into a waypoint mission in daylight (have the mission stop at the last waypoint), which will allow you to be sure you have the right location at night.

Chris
 
Well, back to square one, downloaded litchi, but apparently it's not compatible with Android 10 yet, ugh. I'm gonna try the daylight thing with DJIgo4. Kndll, you are refering to litchi right? As far as I know, in DJIgo4 there's no way to establish a POI without actually drawing a box around a distinct thing in the cameras view, As the shot I'm doing is over a lake at night, there is absolutely nothing distinguishing for the camera to grab on to as a POI.
 
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Can’t you just set waypoints In DJI go4? I know it won’t be circling poi like you want. But maybe many multiple points that overlap will give your the circle you are looking for ??
 
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Well, back to square one, downloaded litchi, but apparently it's not compatible with Android 10 yet, ugh. I'm gonna try the daylight thing with DJIgo4. Kndll, you are refering to litchi right? As far as I know, in DJIgo4 there's no way to establish a POI without actually drawing a box around a distinct thing in the cameras view, As the shot I'm doing is over a lake at night, there is absolutely nothing distinguishing for the camera to grab on to as a POI.

There are two POI modes.
For you the 'old' (first version of DJIs POI) GPS mode is the way to go: Hovering over the center and pressing C1.
Other than the Vision POI it doesn't require daylight/contrast nor the camera looking at the subject during POI recording.

There is a tutorial within the Go4 app. If you click on the question mark once selected POI you will get to it.
As you can see below in GPS POI mode there may be even obstacles between the POI and the drone - a hill or a building or whatever...

POI.jpg
 
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I knew about gps mode but didn’t put it all together until I saw the video. Thanks for sharing
 
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Puede ser manual colocando el joystick izquierdo a la izquierda y el derecho a la derecha.
 
Holy Crap! ParkGT! thanks so much! I had remapped C1 to reset the gimbal 90 degrees, I'll map it back and try this out! This will be so helpful, Thank you.
 
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Holy Crap! ParkGT! thanks so much! I had remapped C1 to reset the gimbal 90 degrees, I'll map it back and try this out! This will be so helpful, Thank you.

You cannot re-map C1 for recording the POI.
Once you select POI this recording function is automatically assigned to C1 (and C2 becomes "delete").
Once you exit the POI modus C1 and C2 become again whatever you have assigned to it before.
 
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Remember - we want to see the result! :)
What have you attached to the drone as lights? I guess you will not only rely on the lights in the legs?

I just went out front and tested it out, amazingly simple. Thank you for pointing me to this solution!
For the light I just 3d printed a semi translucent dome that I'm putting over the downward LEDs on the drone so that it becomes a 360 degree visible light. It may be a couple days before I have a chance to get out to the lake at night again, but I will definitely post some pics once i get it done. Can't thank you enough for your help.
 
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