Thinking of switching to DJI (Mini or Air) from Parrot

[rudispropmgmt]

Hi DJI Community! I'm a Parrot Anafi owner thinking of switching to a DJI drone & hoping to get some questions answered as part of my research.

First, some background on my objectives. I'm a hobbyist/beginner drone pilot and I'm primarily interested in mapping cemeteries for the purpose of historic preservation. I've been frustrated with Parrot & the ecosystem of flight planning apps because I need to (1) fly grid missions for input into photogrammetry software & (2) fly low altitudes less than 10meters. Parrot's FreeFlight6 app doesn't support creating grid missions & Pix4DCapture app doesn't allow missions below 10meters. I've tried other apps & hacks that I'll not describe here.

The ecosystem of apps to support DJI drones seems even more vast than Parrot drones. I'm considering buying either the Air 2S or Mini 3 Pro. Is it possible to create grid-based missions & also control the altitude of the missions below a certain threshold? Would appreciate any recommendations of apps or videos of people doing these things in the wild.

 

[Yaros]

Hello, I'm not experienced in mapping, but there are some 3rd party apps that allow you to map.
Drone Deploy, Drone Link… They all cost extra, don't come with the drone.
The Mini 3 Pro will not work with 3rd party apps as its SDK is not out yet. The Air 2S is supported, and has a pretty good camera for mapping.
There is also an option to use mission planner to plan the missions, then use Mission Planner to Litchi Converter to get the mapping mission into Litchi and execute it from there. This will only cost you the price of Litchi itself, and there are no subscriptions whatsoever, however it's less beginner-friendly and doesn't process photos, so you will need another app to do so, like WebODM which is free.

 

[bradm75]

Be very very careful when choosing your drone. Many of the new DJI drones do not yet, and may never, support 3rd party apps...such as Drone Deploy, Litchi, etc. Do your research before spending your hard-earned money. You may be disappointed with the results.

 

[Peio64270]

Hello, I own both a Mavic Pro1, an Air 2S and an Anafi. With the DJI's one I use mainly Litchi App and, as you say, I was a bit disapointed by the waypoint add-on to Freelight6 (FlightPlan). Thus with help of a friend we have designed a bridge allowing to translate Litchi missions to FlightPlan missions. You can design your missions in the Litchi Hub, control them with VLM on Google Earth and fly them with FF6 and your Anafi.
Here is a comparison of the same short Litchi mission flawn successively with my Mavic1 and my Anafi :

If you are interested by this short "bridge" program, send me a message.

 

[karlblessing]

Be very very careful when choosing your drone. Many of the new DJI drones do not yet, and may never, support 3rd party apps...such as Drone Deploy, Litchi, etc. Do your research before spending your hard-earned money. You may be disappointed with the results.

For the newer stuff :
Air 2S, Mini 2, and Mavic 3 enterprise : yes
Mini 3 pro, Mavic 3 (non Enterprise) , Avata : no

If it's a dji drone older than the Air 2s it most likely has SDK support.