Virtual Litchi Mission

timmy · Feb 9, 2018

only pc - sad. perhaps we should take up a collection and get him a mac to develop on... this tool is great....
timmy

Neebles · Feb 9, 2018

timmy said:
only pc - sad. perhaps we should take up a collection and get him a mac to develop on... this tool is great....
timmy

Bummer.

Gasjkh2 · Feb 10, 2018

Excellent resource, thanks for posting. Need to learn how to use it.

geonsx · Feb 11, 2018

namirda said:
In this thread started almost a year ago - https://mavicpilots.com/threads/how-hard-would-it-be-to-simulate-litchi-missions-in-google-earth.7864, user “torqum” introduced the intriguing idea ‘flying’ a Litchi mission virtually in Google Earth to see how it looks from the perspective specified in Litchi. It was a very appealing concept – to fly a mission anywhere in the world without getting out of your armchair!

In that thread, user "JTS" submitted a conversion program which apparently worked for some folks but not for others – and not for me so I decided to write my own.

The utility is called Virtual Litchi Mission (VLM) – it is a standalone executable and does not need any installation. It runs on my Win10 x64 machine but should run on x86 machines as well. On older versions of windows your mileage may vary…..

VLM sets a watch on a user specified Downloads folder and will automatically read any csv file created in this folder. When Litchi Mission Hub writes a csv file to this folder, VLM will convert it to a “Tour” in Google Earth including the complete camera orientation and gimbal settings which were specified in Litchi.

The resulting Virtual Mission can then be flown in Google Earth and should show results very similar to that obtained when the mission is flown with your drone. I have tried it out on quite a few of the public missions available in Litchi Mission Hub and in areas where the satellite imagery is good, the results are impressive. Google Earth is so amazing!!

I have found VLM useful to check that there are no erroneous parameters in my Litchi Mission and to check that the camera ‘sees’ what I want it to see. It has saved me several wasted flights with my mavic.

A full User Guide is available in VLM under the Help Tab

Please give VLM a try and let me have any feedback, comments etc. I hope you find it useful.

Thanks

Hi,
Is there a VLM for IOS MAC ?

Thanks

namirda · Feb 11, 2018

Sorry - No. PC Only

N

geonsx · Feb 11, 2018

namirda said:
Sorry - No. PC Only

N

Thank you !

jrf · Feb 15, 2018

This is great...might suggest updating the file on the very first post with the latest version as you go. Great tool!

Now if I could just get the heights of the trees updated in Google Earth! hahahahha

namirda · Feb 15, 2018

jrf said:
This is great...might suggest updating the file on the very first post with the latest version as you go. Great tool!

Now if I could just get the heights of the trees updated in Google Earth! hahahahha

Thanks. I've tried updating my first post several times in the past but the web page always crashes when I click "other options" - anybody know how to update an attached file?

Dave Maine · Feb 16, 2018

Use boot camp or Parrallels on the Mac to create a virtual PC and then you can run VLM on a Mac

Arthur H H · Feb 17, 2018

Bloody marvelous software thanks for creating it. Pity Google Earth imagery is so crappy in my area

Celestyn · Feb 19, 2018

Nice work.
It's just a little uncomfortable to change regional settings every time I want to run this great tool. Maybe it is possible to convert separator inside procedure. I have found some patterns, but not sure what source code You use (?)

Regional Settings Override in .NET Framework

microlinux · Feb 19, 2018

This is excellent, many thanks for your efforts!

FWD · Feb 20, 2018

@namirda, your app is awesome!!

Thank you very much for your efforts!

ronzer · Feb 20, 2018

I hope somebody can help me, I can get everything working all the way up until I get to google earth, it wont show up in goggle earth. It says it was sent to google earth but I cant see it.
anybody ever have this problem?
Thanks for any help

namirda · Feb 21, 2018

ronzer said:
I hope somebody can help me, I can get everything working all the way up until I get to google earth, it wont show up in goggle earth. It says it was sent to google earth but I cant see it.
anybody ever have this problem?
Thanks for any help

In your Temporary Places in Google Earth you should see a folder with the name of your mission. Inside that folder are two sub-folders - one is called "Virtual Mission" and the other called "Diagnostics". Double click on "Virtual Mission" and your Mission should start.

Good Luck

N

ronzer · Feb 21, 2018

Thanks, I got it working, I had to change the name of the file and now it works.

knsaber · Feb 27, 2018

I just discovered this and it's amazing! Thank you!

namirda · Mar 3, 2018

When Litchi released the upgrade to their Mission Hub recently (V1.1.9), they upgraded the csv export file format to include speed and elevation reference data and this forced me to sit down and make some corresponding updates to VLM.

Here is the result - Virtual Litchi Mission V2.0.0. Please give it a try and let me know how you get on….

There are quite a few significant differences from the previous version :

1) Version 2.0.0 now incorporates a built-in Chrome browser to access the Litchi Mission Hub. This allows better integration between the Mission Hub and VLM and will hopefully allow for direct integration with Google Earth Web in the future. Unfortunately this makes the download considerably larger than VLM V1. It also means that VLM V2 requires installation and is no longer a standalone executable.

2) There is now a “Profiles Panel” which can optionally be shown below the Mission Hub Panel on which you can plot drone altitude and ground elevation. You can also plot heading and gimbal tilt angles if required.

3) As mentioned above, Litchi introduced some changes to the csv file output by the Mission Hub in their new version 1.1.9. This extended csv file now includes speed and ground reference information on a waypoint by waypoint basis and this new information is now handled properly by VLM V2. It is now very easy to create a mission with elevations relative to ground - provided you trust Google's elevation data!!

4) Prerequisites for installation of VLM V2 are Windows 7/8/10, x64/86. There is also a requirement for .NET4.6 and VC++ 2013 Redist but these should be handled by the installer.

5) Unfortunately the installer is about 56MB and so too big to upload to MavicPilots directly. You can download the installer from Dropbox here :

Dropbox - Virtual Litchi Mission V2.0.0.zip

Please let me know how you get on.

N

marklyn · Mar 5, 2018

namirda, this is amazing. I really appreciate the effort you've put into this and hopefully continue to do so!
Really... this app and even the earlier version(s) have save me a great deal of time in planning out missions.
Before, I'd set up a mission, check and double check it and when I flew it there were tons of things I didn't consider or think through enough.
In most cases it was a failed trip and hours of my time only to have subpar video.
Now, I can set up a mission and fly it and (admittedly) I may have to make 20+ tweaks before it's "golden" but the end result is so much better and a more efficient use of time spent in the field.
Thanks again for your work and I hope you stay encouraged and continue to upgrade an already great product!

marklyn · Mar 6, 2018

namirda,
I'm trying the new version for the first time and I might have discovered a bug (unintended feature).
If I load a mission for the first time, the profile plots look as expected.
If I load another mission the profile plots don't change *until* I export the csv from mission hub (to GE), then they change to match the new mission I just loaded.
Hope that makes sense.