Smooth stop

[mr.jipi_]

Coming from the 3DR Solo drone, I am new to the DJI world with my Mavic 2 Pro.

I’m trying to achieve the following for a specific shoot:

My mission from beginning to end is roughly a 2 km course, deep in nature, that ends with a complet stop. I’m trying to achieve this in 4min, all in a smooth (cinematic) single sequence for a Music Video. In the best scenario, there are 4 different angles/shot I would need to get smoothly in the same sequence in between Start and Finish.



Because it is very hard to achieve a flawless 4 min flight over 2 km flawlessly (for me at least), I was hoping to use the Waypoint's mode. It does 90% of the job but as you know, the transition are not very smooth. My biggest issue with it for this project has been the rough “stop” (brakes) at the end… I need the camera to very smoothly stop and stay still (hoover) for 30 seconds at the end of the music video. And with Waypoint, It is not a smooth stop like you can achieve manually or with the Cinematic mode.

• Is there any way to make the stops in Waypoint smoother? I could settle for a single A to B waypoint, without anything in between, if the end stop would be smooth. Like Waypoint + Cinematic...
• Would it be possible to have the Waypoint system handle the first parts of the flight and then switch to manual mode SEEMLESSLY so I can do the braking part smoothly manually?
• Would Litchi allow me to achieve a smoother waypoint experience or at least a single point A to point B with a very smooth stop?
• Tripod mode could really help me but it is way to slow for the timing I need to get over such a long distance. Is there any way to raise the Tripod mode speed? Otherwise, is there a way to cap the overall Drone’s speed to 15km/h for example (like we can cap the altitude and range)? This would make it much easier for me to fly manually and achieve a perfect smooth fly from start to finish.

Thank you very much for your support.

 

[steve_lyt]

in waypoint mode , I think you can set a delay before moving to the next point. I normally put a waypoint at the beginning and the end to allow me to get the camera pointing at the correct position, and a curved flightpath helps. and set poi`s

 

[NJT]

I use litchi, it seems to work a lot better than waypoints on DJI. You can also plan it all from your desk top to fine tune it. I recommend it to you for what you are describing.

 

[DanaMc]

I use litchi, it seems to work a lot better than waypoints on DJI. You can also plan it all from your desk top to fine tune it. I recommend it to you for what you are describing.

Agree completely. One warning I have been dealing with especially in/around trees or anything that grows. What you see in Litchi via Google Earth is years old. To make sure all your sequences avoid potential disaster, plan your overall flight path with POI’s, altitude (AGL) and speed. Then create subsets of the entire mission. Go fly each subset SLOWLY to be sure it’s a clean passage. Tweak the subsets as needed. Then edit the total mission to match the subsets. Test the whole mission again. Then you should be good to go. It’s a bit painstaking. But crashingbyour drone is far worse. Don’t ask how I know these things...?

 

[mr.jipi_]

Agree completely. One warning I have been dealing with especially in/around trees or anything that grows. What you see in Litchi via Google Earth is years old. To make sure all your sequences avoid potential disaster, plan your overall flight path with POI’s, altitude (AGL) and speed. Then create subsets of the entire mission. Go fly each subset SLOWLY to be sure it’s a clean passage. Tweak the subsets as needed. Then edit the total mission to match the subsets. Test the whole mission again. Then you should be good to go. It’s a bit painstaking. But crashingbyour drone is far worse. Don’t ask how I know these things...[emoji849]

Yes, I was going to set my waypoints on the spot while flying my mission myself the first time.

 

[NJT]

Agree completely. One warning I have been dealing with especially in/around trees or anything that grows. What you see in Litchi via Google Earth is years old. To make sure all your sequences avoid potential disaster, plan your overall flight path with POI’s, altitude (AGL) and speed. Then create subsets of the entire mission. Go fly each subset SLOWLY to be sure it’s a clean passage. Tweak the subsets as needed. Then edit the total mission to match the subsets. Test the whole mission again. Then you should be good to go. It’s a bit painstaking. But crashingbyour drone is far worse. Don’t ask how I know these things...?

I agree with checking it slowly. I have just created two different missions that are quite complex with trees etc around a building. It took me around 10x rerun to get the perfect angles and miss everything. On an earlier run I went to close to a flag pole. It sensed the pole and stopped, the wind then blew the giant flag into the rotors, the machine flew vertically up the pole wrapped in the flag (this is next to a very busy road in sydney) flung out the top flipped over and hovered!!! no damage or crash! I couldn't believe it, so lucky. I changed the rear rotors as they were scrubbed out a little. I also got this on video, I'll post it.

I did diverge from my point, but I found the best way is to fly out in waypoints mode in Litchi in the field, fly over the points of interest and dangerous points like tree branches, edges of buildings, flag poles! and map them using the set point of interest button (C2 for me) then save as a mission on your phone. You can then open all these points back up when you are inside on your PC and plan your mission based around known points you picked up. This method works well and it is how I will do all future missions.

 

[mr.jipi_]

the wind then blew the giant flag into the rotors, the machine flew vertically up the pole wrapped in the flag (this is next to a very busy road in sydney) flung out the top flipped over and hovered!!! no damage or crash! I couldn't believe it, so lucky.

That flag thing! Wow... Lucky indeed. Hopefully no clients were around!