Virtual Litchi Mission

marklyn · Sep 22, 2018

I've also been practically begging them (Litchi) to consider some upgrades to their site, that I don't feel would be very difficult to do.
1) How about foldering for missions or ability to categories to better organize similar flights?
2) How about the ability to rename missions?
3) Ability to save mission notes. Could put notes in on what changes I made after a mission or other info.
4) Change dates for missions. Lots of times I fly a mission and afterwards fine tune the mission. It'd be nice to see when I made changes.

jctarvin · Sep 22, 2018

marklyn said:
I've also been practically begging them (Litchi) to consider some upgrades to their site, that I don't feel would be very difficult to do.
1) How about foldering for missions or ability to categories to better organize similar flights?
2) How about the ability to rename missions?
3) Ability to save mission notes. Could put notes in on what changes I made after a mission or other info.
4) Change dates for missions. Lots of times I fly a mission and afterwards fine tune the mission. It'd be nice to see when I made changes.

Would be nice. For now....
1) I export missions to a directory with sub-directories on my desktop. I try to keep my mission hub cloud directory uncluttered.
2) Would be nice, but I can work around it.
3) This one is if no interest to me. I keep tweaking a mission and viewing in VLM until I like it. I usually only fly a mission once a they happen on road trips.... Never to return.
4) I would save the mission with same name, but a date at the end of the name yyyy-mm-dd each mission would be in date order.

All these would be cool, but I'd rather see them work on other things like entering coords for location.

marklyn · Sep 22, 2018

My thoughts jctarvin...
1) I prefer to have all of my missions handy. Thought about using desktop for storage but convenience of having missions in the cloud is important to me.
2) I can work around it too but, still, it would be convenient and I don't think that fix would take much effort on Litchi's part.
3) I do the same thing but I do repeat trips to the same area and sometimes when I didn't get it right even with VLM I can make adjustments ad nauseam.
4) My current naming methodology is two letter state, city, and subject name of flight. Too little space for much more naming since the screen only displays about 30 letters.

I live in a urban area so flying very close by is not practical due to so much interference plus there really isn't that much to "see" in drone perspective terms. I have several places that are an hour or so that are wide open or places that make for nice video (old water towers, creek beds, ponds, etc.) It took me 3 trips to my hometown to get the water tower flight just the way I wanted it. Even with google sat views, taller objects are difficult to create flight paths over due to angle of sat view, stuff like that is why I do repeat visits or try to improve on previous flights to expand my skills.

marklyn · Sep 24, 2018

Could use some thoughts on a VLM Litchi mission I set up. My starting point is actually at the top of a cinder cone in Hawaii at 222' for the altitude I set. Yet when I look at it in GE it shows as if I'm inside the cinder cone. Plus if you look at the WP1 in VLM it shows the ground elevation is 0 feet. Any ideas on why the start point wouldn't show the proper altitude at WP1? (The cinder cone is around 300' and there is a trail that goes to the top)

View attachment 47650

namirda · Sep 24, 2018

marklyn said:
Could use some thoughts on a VLM Litchi mission I set up. My starting point is actually at the top of a cinder cone in Hawaii at 222' for the altitude I set. Yet when I look at it in GE it shows as if I'm inside the cinder cone. Plus if you look at the WP1 in VLM it shows the ground elevation is 0 feet. Any ideas on why the start point wouldn't show the proper altitude at WP1? (The cinder cone is around 300' and there is a trail that goes to the top)

View attachment 47650

Hi,

Yes - that's an interesting one!

Did you know that elevations as determined by Google Maps (ie Litchi) are different from those in Google Earth? I have no idea why this difference exists but I guess Google have their reasons .

The difference is usually not very much - the most I had previously seen was 4 or 5 metres but I think in this case it is nearer 90m!

According to Litchi and the VLM Activity Log, the ground elevation of your WP1 is zero. However if you roll your mouse over the same spot in Google Earth I think you will find an elevation of 90m or so!!

That is the reason why your WP1 is underground in Google Earth!!

So which one is correct? Is WP1 at sea level or is it 90m above sea level? I guess you can see from where you are standing??

Must be wild volcanic activity out there for ground elevations to change by 90m!!!

N

marklyn · Sep 24, 2018

Well I've been there before and I'm certain that the cinder cone is 300+ feet ASL, just never hiked it (yet).

Avi8tor · Oct 1, 2018

Just stumbled onto this app. I think it's the most useful app I have used for flight planning.
THANK YOU!!!

jctarvin · Oct 1, 2018

Hi Namirda.....

Just ran into something puzzling today. Was tweaking a mission that I'm going to run Thursday or Friday. All of a sudden, I could no longer get an altitude / elevation profile. None of my altitudes are near 1,640'. Tried shutting down and restarting, but no luck. The mission opens and creates csv into GE with no errors. It runs fine in GE. Here's the link if you want to take a look and see if I've done something squirrely!! Many thanks!

DISREGARD: It showed up again...... don't understand what happened.

Mission Hub - Litchi

excelents · Oct 3, 2018

Would love to install it but all I get is this and I have tried every which way up to get it to install bit to no avail so downloaded V1 which seemed to work fine which told me Google Earth and Google Earth Pro was not / is not installed even though it is.

namirda · Oct 3, 2018

excelents said:
Would love to install it but all I get is this and I have tried every which way up to get it to install bit to no avail so downloaded V1 which seemed to work fine which told me Google Earth and Google Earth Pro was not / is not installed even though it is.

Well do you have an internet connection? The installer wants to download runtime files from Microsoft and it is saying that it cannot.

N

excelents · Oct 3, 2018

Oh yes 100 mb VM cable connection, all permissions given to firewalls everything internet wise is running perfectly and GE is installed.

JORGE SM · Oct 6, 2018

He preparado una misión para probar a verlo en google earth de manera virtual. Pero no está correcto. Aparece el vuelo, los waypoints, pero el edificio que tendría que rodear, aparece aplanado, pero en cambio los otros edificios si aparece levantados.
Adjunto el archivo por si alguien lo quisiera probar y comentar si tiene solución. Saludos

I have prepared a mission to try to see it in google earth virtually. But it is not correct. The flight appears, the waypoints, but the building that would have to surround, appears flattened, but instead the other buildings if it appears raised. Attached the file if someone wanted to try and comment if it has a solution. regards

namirda · Oct 6, 2018

JORGE SM said:
He preparado una misión para probar a verlo en google earth de manera virtual. Pero no está correcto. Aparece el vuelo, los waypoints, pero el edificio que tendría que rodear, aparece aplanado, pero en cambio los otros edificios si aparece levantados.
Adjunto el archivo por si alguien lo quisiera probar y comentar si tiene solución. Saludos

I have prepared a mission to try to see it in google earth virtually. But it is not correct. The flight appears, the waypoints, but the building that would have to surround, appears flattened, but instead the other buildings if it appears raised. Attached the file if someone wanted to try and comment if it has a solution. regards

Hi,

Please check that the "elevation exaggeration" (in tools/options/3D View) in Google Earth is set to 1 and that the HP Altitude Reference in VLM is set to WP1. If that does not solve your problem then please post a link to your mission in the Litchi Mission Hub

Thanks

namirda · Oct 6, 2018

excelents said:
Oh yes 100 mb VM cable connection, all permissions given to firewalls everything internet wise is running perfectly and GE is installed.

Did you ever solve this problem? Are you using a standard windows machine or something else? Have you tried another machine? I have never seen this problem before!

N

JORGE SM · Oct 8, 2018

namirda said:
Hi,

Please check that the "elevation exaggeration" (in tools/options/3D View) in Google Earth is set to 1 and that the HP Altitude Reference in VLM is set to WP1. If that does not solve your problem then please post a link to your mission in the Litchi Mission Hub

Thanks

Thank you very much for answering.
This weekend I have dedicated a few hours, but I do not make the virtual litchi go properly. Evidently for not knowing him.
What you tell me about the 3D option in google earth I already have it as you inform: 1
The second question, and that the HP Altitude Reference in VLM is set to WP1, I do not understand what I have to do. Could you explain something else?
When I create a simple mission to test the flight on Google Earth, I look for any tower or building. I put a POI on the roof of the building or tower and then I create several waypoints, surrounding the building. I do not know the height of the building, but I put the wp 30 meters high at all. I export it to CVS and when I view it on google earth, the wpo appear very high and the tower-building, is as close to the ground. And clear to the ejectura flight, you see the sky.
You will not have any flight, similar that you can see through the program and see how the parameters are configured.
In relation to the heights I have something of mess. The above ground and current ground.
Again, thank you very much for sharing your time.

Dynochrome · Oct 9, 2018

I realize this is a GE question but though someone might know,how do I get the speed of the virtual tour to view at the same speed the drone will actually fly? And also how to adjust the speed of the tour as well to whatever I want not relitive to actual flight speed? I tried every speed setting I could find in earth and it stays the same speed.

Aerial-Pixel · Oct 9, 2018

Dynochrome said:
I realize this is a GE question but though someone might know,how do I get the speed of the virtual tour to view at the same speed the drone will actually fly? And also how to adjust the speed of the tour as well to whatever I want not relitive to actual flight speed? I tried every speed setting I could find in earth and it stays the same speed.

I explain it in my tutorial here, the method I use gets pretty close to actual time

marciano · Oct 9, 2018

Hi,
When I open VLM in my laptop I have a problem in Mission Hub window: when I click on a WP the properties window has some parts hidden (top and bottom) below the Mission Hub frame so I cannot delete a WP (top) or manage actions (bottom)
Scroll bars missing or panel 'scale to fit'

Thank you!

namirda · Oct 9, 2018

Dynochrome said:
I realize this is a GE question but though someone might know,how do I get the speed of the virtual tour to view at the same speed the drone will actually fly? And also how to adjust the speed of the tour as well to whatever I want not relitive to actual flight speed? I tried every speed setting I could find in earth and it stays the same speed.

The speed of the virtual mission can be changed in the VLM setup - go to VLM/Setup/General/Cruising Speed.

You can also interactively change the speed of the virtual mission during the flight using the control bar on the bottom left of the Google Earth viewing window

N

namirda · Oct 9, 2018

marciano said:
Hi,
When I open VLM in my laptop I have a problem in Mission Hub window: when I click on a WP the properties window has some parts hidden (top and bottom) below the Mission Hub frame so I cannot delete a WP (top) or manage actions (bottom)
Scroll bars missing or panel 'scale to fit'
View attachment 49502
Thank you!

Yes indeed. This is a Litchi problem and not a VLM problem.

The WP properties window in Litchi does not scale properly with screen size. You can see the same if you try to run Litchi in a reduced window size.

You will need to close the VLM Profile Panel which will allow Litchi to run full height.

N