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Virtual Litchi Mission

Twice, recently, I've wanted grids ... and found other means.
If ever you thought of adding, @namirda ... it's a +1 vote from me ... but no biggie. 👍
 
Namirda!

1. Pilots ask if it is possible to make a grid not of three points of interest, but more? For example, from 20 points of interest?

2. It would be nice to designate the take-off and landing points as well))

3. And it would be nice to create a large mission, and be able to divide this mission by 99 points automatically.

Sincerely, Magomed
Hi Borodaagvali,

Thanks for your suggestions but I don't think I can help you much with any of them:

1) The grid option generates a simple zig zag mission which covers a simple rectangular area. It was meant to be simple. The 3 POIs used to define the grid area are the simplest way I could think of to define that rectangle. The line from POI1 to POI2 defines one edge of the rectangle and the perpendicular distance from POI3 to that line defines the width of the rectangle. I think you are probably asking for the grid area to be an arbitrary shape instead of a rectangle but that is much more tricky and not something I want to get into.

2) Litchi does not know anything about the take off or landing points of a mission and so I don't think that VLM can add anything of value in that regard.

3) I have flown hundreds of missions and have never found the 99 WP limit to be a problem - I always run out of battery before I run out of waypoints! However, I have done a few checks and have found that the Mission Hub is quite capable of handling more than 99 waypoints but Litchi have artificially capped it at 99 because that is the maximum mission size that their mobile app can handle. One way to do what you want would be for me to allow VLM to generate very large missions with more than 99 WPs and you could then use the batch editor to delete the WPs you don't want and so reduce it to a workable 99. It sounds risky to me though - one day somebody will upload the big mission and then run into problems. I will think more about it.

N
 
VLM Version 2.7.0 is now available

Download link in first post of this long thread.

This release fixes a bug in straight line and TNW missions (@Urkman - it should fix your problem)

As a new feature, this version of VLM finally supports Waypoint Actions - up to 15 actions per WP just as Litchi does. Simply select the action in the Mission Hub and VLM should pick them up and show them in the virtual mission.

Note that actions will only be performed in your virtual mission if your path mode is set to Straight Line.

Actions of "Stay for", "Rotate Aircraft" and "Tilt Camera" will perform the appropriate movements in the virtual mission while "Take Photo", "Start Recording" and "Stop Recording" will generate a short tone at the appropriate point.

Note that on my old laptop I get some staggering of the sound during playback - not sure if it is limitations of my hardware or some issue in GE.

N
 
Hi Namirda, first of all - Thanks for your effort with the great VLM program...

In the current version (2.7.0) there seems to be an issue with the speeds transferred from VLM to GE.
While flying the mission in GE (VLM Path Mode = Curved Turns), the speed abruptly decreases in each turn. On a straight line, the speed is back to normal. Many smoothing points (selected in VLM-Setup) significantly increase this effect.
I didn't see that in version 2.5.0.. What could have gone wrong? Maybe I missed a setting?
Thalmann
 
Using the latest version of VLM if I use the hub built into it and drop a waypoint the drop down panel is to large to make changes on the top or bottom. Is there a way to change this in the settings as I cannot find it?

EDIT:
If I change the monitor screen size to one step above what I was using I am able to see all the options on the drop down window. Seems kind of funny this is the only program I need to do this with.
So my question still is there a way in the settings to adjust this other then me having to take the extra steps of changing my monitor settings?

Screenshot (94).png
 
Last edited:
Hi Namirda, first of all - Thanks for your effort with the great VLM program...

In the current version (2.7.0) there seems to be an issue with the speeds transferred from VLM to GE.
While flying the mission in GE (VLM Path Mode = Curved Turns), the speed abruptly decreases in each turn. On a straight line, the speed is back to normal. Many smoothing points (selected in VLM-Setup) significantly increase this effect.
I didn't see that in version 2.5.0.. What could have gone wrong? Maybe I missed a setting?
Thalmann
Hi!
Everything is fine there. As I understand it, Namirda applied an automatic calculation for a small and large curve. If your speed drops with a small curve, increase the curve until you get the desired effect.

1648472279201.png
 
Hi Borodaagvali,

it´s correct, the speed drop is smaller for larger curves. But still present in GE. In reality, this behavior is absolutely not to be observed.
I flew a mission today. The drone flew through the curves without any drop in speed. Whether big or small didn't matter.
Thalmann
 
Using the latest version of VLM if I use the hub built into it and drop a waypoint the drop down panel is to large to make changes on the top or bottom. Is there a way to change this in the settings as I cannot find it?

EDIT:
If I change the monitor screen size to one step above what I was using I am able to see all the options on the drop down window. Seems kind of funny this is the only program I need to do this with.
So my question still is there a way in the settings to adjust this other then me having to take the extra steps of changing my monitor settings?

View attachment 145906
This is a long standing problem and I believe it is an issue with Litchi and not VLM.

It seems that Litchi set the size of the "Waypoint Settings" panel assuming the browser window is set to full screen and they do not resize it if the window size is changed.

It is easy to check this - open Litchi Mission Hub in your browser (ie not in VLM), drop a WP somewhere in order to show the "Waypoint Settings" panel and then change the size of the browser window. You will see that the "Waypoint Settings" panel does not resize properly but gets truncated in the same way as it does in VLM.

The Mission Hub panel in VLM is smaller than your full screen and so we observe the same problem.

N
 
This is a long standing problem and I believe it is an issue with Litchi and not VLM.

It seems that Litchi set the size of the "Waypoint Settings" panel assuming the browser window is set to full screen and they do not resize it if the window size is changed.

It is easy to check this - open Litchi Mission Hub in your browser (ie not in VLM), drop a WP somewhere in order to show the "Waypoint Settings" panel and then change the size of the browser window. You will see that the "Waypoint Settings" panel does not resize properly but gets truncated in the same way as it does in VLM.

The Mission Hub panel in VLM is smaller than your full screen and so we observe the same problem.

N
My problem is with VLM as Litchi hub works perfectly. Litchi hub is the the right size so what ever VLM has done to make the program it is not the same as Litchi hub in google chrome.
 
Hi Namirda, first of all - Thanks for your effort with the great VLM program...

In the current version (2.7.0) there seems to be an issue with the speeds transferred from VLM to GE.
While flying the mission in GE (VLM Path Mode = Curved Turns), the speed abruptly decreases in each turn. On a straight line, the speed is back to normal. Many smoothing points (selected in VLM-Setup) significantly increase this effect.
I didn't see that in version 2.5.0.. What could have gone wrong? Maybe I missed a setting?
Thalmann
Thanks for the feedback.

You did not share your mission but I think the problem could be that you have a lot of waypoints very close together or are flying very fast.

For stability reasons, I introduced a minimum flight time between WPs of 1 second which seemed quite reasonable to me at the time. However, I now see that it is quite possible to hit that limit if you have a mission with closely spaced WPs and/or you have a lot of smoothing and/or you are flying very fast.

Try flying your virtual mission at a lower speed and see if the problem goes away.

There does need to be a lower limit for the flight time between WPs but I will look into lowering it.

N
 
Last edited:
My problem is with VLM as Litchi hub works perfectly. Litchi hub is the the right size so what ever VLM has done to make the program it is not the same as Litchi hub in google chrome.

That's not the case for me.

See the screen shot below which shows Litchi Mission Hub open in a browser window which is smaller than my desktop. The "Waypoint Settings" panel is truncated and does not size properly as I resize the window.

Litchi Problem.JPG

Maybe you could share a similar screenshot?

N
 
I asked for an image showing your complete desktop with the browser open on only part of the desktop. The problem only shows up when the browser window is smaller than the desktop.

N
Yes you are correct, the problem is there with only part of the desktop. So how can we\you find a fix for this?
 
Yes you are correct, the problem is there with only part of the desktop.
Thank you.

This is not fixable by me - it is something for Litchi but I don't think they will want to do much about it.

They have chosen to code the Mission Hub as a fixed size window with no scrollbars and this is the result.

To introduce scrollbars they would have to redesign the whole page with a toolbar at the top containing the various buttons. I guess they are not up for that.

N
 
Yes you are correct, the problem is there with only part of the desktop. So how can we\you find a fix for this?
I used to run Litchi on a laptop that had a relatively low resolution and so the top and bottom of the waypoint dialog was hidden as it is in your screenshot. My solution was to use the keyboard shortcuts for those hidden controls. The right and left arrow keys could be used in place of the previous and next waypoint buttons. The insert and delete keys could be used in place of the buttons hidden at the top.

Your comment about changing your monitor settings suggest that you may not be running at your monitor's native (preferred) resolution. Running an LCD/LED monitor at anything less than its native resolution will result in less than ideal text display and should be avoided. Instead, it would be better to run at the native resolution and change your text/app scaling to something above 100%.
 
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... For stability reasons, I introduced a minimum flight time between WPs of 1 second which seemed quite reasonable to me at the time. However, I now see that it is quite possible to hit that limit if you have a mission with closely spaced WPs and/or you have a lot of smoothing and/or you are flying very fast.

Try flying your virtual mission at a lower speed and see if the problem goes away.

There does need to be a lower limit for the flight time between WPs but I will look into lowering it.

N

Hi Namirda,

Thanks for your answer.
When I fly the virtual missions at a lower speed, or use fewer smoothing points, the abrupt speed drops become smaller. But they are still there. So maybe the reason is the introduced minimum flight time between WPs.

However, the simulation generated by VLM in GE has apparently changed from V 2.5.0 to V 2.7.0.
I was able to test this again because I'm still using V 2.5.0 on another computer.
In the attached example, the virtual flight almost stops at WP2 if it was generated with V 2.7.0. This is not the case if the virtual flight was generated with V2.5.0
Btw: My virtual missions are not faster than usual, around 28km/h. The number of smoothing points for each WP is at the default value of VLM (21)

Thank you for your effort in solving the problem.
Thalmann
 
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