Litchi: mission to take a video from one fixed spot with a 360 look around?

[Bob Hospadaruk]

I want to create a mission where the spark flies up to a fixed GPS coord, turns on the video, then do a 360 pivot on that spot. I tried a 3 waypoint mission where the 1st WP had a heading of 1° and the 2nd WP with the exact same GPS coord but a heading of 0° with clockwise rotation. I thought it would work, making a 359° turn in place. But when flying the mission Litchi gave me an error about an illegal distance between waypoints. Mission Here: Mission Hub - Litchi

Anybody got another idea? I want to capture a "look-around" video over successive days and connect them into a time-lapse video, but I want it to be shot from the same point in space each time.

Also - is there a way to control rotation speed with Litchi on a Spark?

Thanks!

 

[Haggi]

Can you do a 1 WP mission?
On this WP set "Interpolate"
Under Mission Settings in app (not hub)->Rotation Direction. Try managed.
Rotation speed? Low cruising speed? Dont know, normaly set to degrees pr. min/sec or whatever.

Actions on WP:

• Start recording
• Stay for 5s
• Rotate aircraft 360°
• Stay for 5s
• Stop recording

Actually, I have no idea. Just brainstorming here...
Maybe you need a 2 WP mission to do it.

Tell us what you did if you can get it working

 

[abtocmeptb]

I’d drew a circle and split it to waypoints and placed POI all around. Insert as many waypoints as you need to cover 360 and interpolate.

 

[AirCam]

Why not set a poi. Fly to a point near the poi. Start the video. Focusing on the poi, do an orbit around the poi. If you are close enough to the poi it will appear to be a spin in place. Control the speed in the way point parameters in Litchi. You can set it as low as 1/10 mph.

 

[Hotwire]

It never ceases to amaze me how badly we reinvent the wheel. Such missions were possible with 3DR Mission Planner and Tower, years ago.
I have a Spark and it's a great travel buddy but the old Ardupilot based drones I built long ago, still have more capacity for many things. They also take better video but you could never take them travelling unless you took the car and left everything else at home.
A lychee is a small fruit with no much meat. ;-)

 

[TangoMango]

I would recommend simply use "Orbit" mode in Litchi. Activate record. It will encircle the POI at your setting and continue until you stop or low battery warning. Please read the instructions here Help - Litchi

 

[webvan]

Amazingly the Tello has that very feature built-in, go figure...

 

[TangoMango]

I would recommend simply use "Orbit" mode in Litchi. Activate record. It will encircle the POI at your setting and continue until you stop or low battery warning. Please read the instructions here Help - Litchi

Perhaps I misunderstood. You want it to stay in one location in sky and look around at the location/outward not at a point upon the ground?

 

[mik]

Bob, what you want to do in Litchi is very easy.
Orbit mode
Touch place you want to rotate at to create a POI
Select height at which you want to fly
radius = 0
Speed in deg/sec
entry point where you want to start recording.
Heading mode = outward
Direction = anti clock or clock
Gimbl control to manual. (set when flying)
Subject height is not relevant.
Total control of what you want to do and VERY easy

Edit:- min radius is 5M but should still do what you want.
Edit:- you cannot specify exact coords but you can save the flight for repeat performances of the same thing.

 

[Crispjon]

I used Orbit with a 15m radius and set the degrees per minute to a slow number and heading outward (I think) and the video appeared to be what you are wanting to achieve. However It was experimental to see what happened and did not save so can't repeat or check settings.

Thanks Mik, so I was on the right track or orbit!

 

[mik]

Can you do a 1 WP mission?
On this WP set "Interpolate"
Under Mission Settings in app (not hub)->Rotation Direction. Try managed.
Rotation speed? Low cruising speed? Dont know, normaly set to degrees pr. min/sec or whatever.

Actions on WP:

• Start recording
• Stay for 5s
• Rotate aircraft 360°
• Stay for 5s
• Stop recording

Actually, I have no idea. Just brainstorming here...
Maybe you need a 2 WP mission to do it.

Tell us what you did if you can get it working

Hi Hagg
I think your command "rotate aircraft 360" will simply rotate the aircraft from its current direction TO a grid bearing of 360 degrees (i.e. North)

Also, with the waypoint mode "rotate" function, I find the speed of rotation rather fast and not selectable. With the Orbit method you can choose the rotation speed.

 

[AirCam]

I explained exactly how to do it two days ago in post #4.

 

[mik]

I explained exactly how to do it two days ago in post #4.

Hi AC

I think your post needed a little clarification. You did not specify Orbit mode at the beginning.

However you did say later on "Focusing on the poi, do an orbit around the poi. " from which you could infer orbit mode BUT I do not believe Bob wants to focus on the POI. I sense he wants to take a look around at that point in which case the Gimabl mode should be at "manual" not "auto".

I was just trying to add to what you said in an attempt to make it a little more clear.

 

[pmshop]

I see other comments showing alternate methods on how to achieve a 360 view but there are also specific actions that can be taken at a WP.
And off all things, I found out just today Litchi Support that you have to have your mission set to straight lines inn order for all actions to work.
That will kill a lot of the cool effects not using curved lines so I I sent a reply to their tech support to see if it is kind of like the gimbal interpolate?
Maybe kill the angles a WP before and after for the actions to work?
I will report back when I hear.

But yes, I agree with Post #4 and #6 (and others related to #6)
But I would believe subject height would be important as on my first orbit, subject height was 0 and the gimbal pointed down to me and not straight out.
Subject height should = altitude?

**UPDATE*** from Litchi:
Entire mission has to be straight lines.
With curved turns, actions work only on 1st and last waypoints.

 

[mik]

I see other comments showing alternate methods on how to achieve a 360 view but there are also specific actions that can be taken at a WP.
And off all things, I found out just today Litchi Support that you have to have your mission set to straight lines inn order for all actions to work.
That will kill a lot of the cool effects not using curved lines so I I sent a reply to their tech support to see if it is kind of like the gimbal interpolate?
Maybe kill the angles a WP before and after for the actions to work?
I will report back when I hear.

But yes, I agree with Post #4 and #6 (and others related to #6)
But I would believe subject height would be important as on my first orbit, subject height was 0 and the gimbal pointed down to me and not straight out.
Subject height should = altitude?

If, in orbit mode, your gimbal control is set to auto when subject height is 0 then it will look down. If subject heght = altitude then it should point horizontally. If gimbal is set to manual you can set it at any angle. it depends what op wants to record.

As a further point if repeatability is required, the take off altitude must always be the same each time.

I agree with your "straight lines" comments. The difficulty I have using the waypoints" rotate" feature is that I have yet to find a way to control the speed of the rotation.

 

[TangoMango]

I concur that you set the altitude and subject height to same with auto gimbal, with center focus it does a 360 orbit which faces out at a flat horizontal. So it does a video circle looking out.

 

[mik]

I have just been testing this. What TM says above is correct. The minimum radius is 5 metres. I think you get better results with the camera set to point inwards (across the circle as it were) rather than outwards

 

[Scorpion]

I believe with Litchi waypoint you need minimum of 0.5 Meter between 2 point for it to work,
good luck.

 

[Bob Hospadaruk]

Thanks everyone! Very helpful. With the "waypoint and rotate" method, not being able to control rotation speed is a show stopper. The "orbit with a small radius" will probably work just fine for my needs. Points out some good areas of Litchi (or DJI Go 4) for enhancement though. I'm really liking using Litchi and missions though!

 

[mik]

Be nice to see any results you get. We are all learning here.