I have completed my “Litchi Waypoint Mission to Mavic 3 Waypoint Mission converter.
With this web application, one can design a waypoint mission from the comfort of your office on a large monitor using Litchi’s Mission Hub then convert that mission to one that can be flown with a Mavic 3.
Litchi missions can be exported as CSV files. These CSV files store most of the important parameters of a waypoint mission. DJI’s Mavic 3 stores waypoint missions in a KMZ file in the flying device (phone, tablet or controller). However, because DJI did not design missions to be imported or exported to or from their flying device, there are a few extra steps involved in getting this process to work. As a result, these steps may be more involved than what a casual user may want to attempt. Read on to find out more.
A fellow forum member has provided a number of Mavic 3 waypoint missions for me to examine and has devised a way to import and export missions to and from the Mavic 3. His instructions for doing so are available from the instructions of this web application.
There are a few important things to consider when converting waypoint missions between Litchi and the Mavic 3.
Litchi uses a B-Spline to generate a flight path defined by waypoints. The Mavic 3 uses a Bezier Spline to generate a flight path defined by waypoints. B-Splines do not (in general) go through their control points. Bezier Splines do go through their control points. As a result, even though the waypoints are the same, the converted mission flight path will not be exactly the same.
The Mavic 3 supports some camera actions that are not available in Litchi. For example, in the Mavic 3 one can create a “Zoom” action. Litchi does not support this action.
So far, I have only had access to Mavic 3 missions with metric units of measurement. Therefor, only metric units are currently supported. I will add imperial units as soon as I am provided an example Mavic 3 mission file with imperial units.
The following two converters (as well as the Spiral, Panorama, Droneception, and AirData converters):
Mavic 3 Waypoint Mission To Litchi Waypoint Mission
Litchi Waypoint Mission To Mavic 3 Waypoint Mission
Once again Wes Barris offers hope to Litchi users that DJI will not be permitted to abandon Litchi even if it wants to haha.
I’ve just bought a Mini 3 that is on the way in the post, yet all along I’d wondered whether the recently announced Mini 3 SDK will even permit Litchi to add the Mini 3 to its list of compatible DJI drones, or whether the SDK will lock Litchi out while offering a watered down DJIFly waypoint facility as a piteous consolation prize.
Despite harboring these nail-biting reservations about what the Mini 3’s new SDK will permit in terms of third-party access, the above post by Wes Barris, the Patron Saint of Litchi Aficionados, renews my hope with a tentative assurance that I will be able to fly Litchi waypoint missions with my Mini 3, and that the drone will faithfully complete every mission’s waypoint sequence even if DJI tries to lock Litchi out of their emerging product line.
Wes Barris is da MAN, and I am prepared to place my precious dentition at risk of destruction by a knuckle sandwich in the course of an honorable duke-out with any mortal that disagrees with this pronouncement
Hi, thank you for this great tool. I have Mavic 3E which uses Pilot 2 app. I tried importing mission converted via your tool but it couldn´t import - just infinite import wheel. So with the hope that you would be able to help, I created waypoint mission in native app: https://mega.nz/file/3e4ljBZI#UWeNBiIKsNNJbpyxjGIpQ3QdLdCKn4at2lAZBoKA8sY. Maybe you will be able to create converter also for this Enterprise series. I would be really thankful and dozens of other users as well. Thank you in advance.
I found a few differences in the file you provided from what I had seen earlier. I’ve added an option to specify what type of drone you have (Mavic 3 or Mavic 3 Enterprise). Please try the converter again and let me know if the resulting mission loads properly for you.
I’ve used your Mission converter and Managed to have a succesful mission but I had to change all the headings to custom for the mapping flight planned, the “Manual heading” seem to cause conflict.
I have made a software update to my “Litchi Mission to Mavic 3 Mission” converter. If the Litchi mission has the “Above Ground” option checked, the converter will make a Google Elevation API call and convert the “Above Ground” heights in the Litchi CSV file to “Above Take-off” heights in the Mavic 3 KMZ file.
Please give it a try and let me know if you encounter any problems.
Thanks for confirming that one can upload missions to the Air 3 just as they could with the Mavic 3.
Please clarify why you call the Air 3 a “VSC drone”. One of the “Lost Signal” options for the Air 3 is to continue the mission. This would imply that the Air 3 is employing on-board waypoints. I do not own an Air 3 so I cannot check this myself. However, I have posted this question in the Mavic Pilots forum and was told the Air 3 can continue a mission on signal loss.
That is interesting. The person with the Air 3 who responded to my other post is from the USA. Your information about “Continue” not being an option in the EU makes me wonder if that is also the case with the Mavic 3.
The more important part of what I am trying to find out is if the Air 3 uses “on-board” waypoints like the Mavic 3. My assumption is that it does simply because the Mavic 3 does and both are using DJI Fly.
Would you be willing to share an Air 3 mission KMZ file created in DJI Fly with me? I would like to analyze the data contained within and identify any differences from a Mavic 3 mission KMZ file.
Wes,
First of all, thank you for a most excellent set of utilities!
I have a mini 4 that I would like to use your litchi converter from litchi mission hub
Question: does the converter utilize the photo capture interval (either in seconds or meters) on the mini 4? Capturing photo every X meters would be really useful for photogrammetry.
You have to use the converter to do the flight then in DJI Fly you can not set in meters but in seconds.
Before waypoint 1, set DJI Fly in Photo Interval with the seconds you want then press the button to capture photo interval during the flight ;
Thanks for this. If I set interval photo shooting up, and I set a waypoint action to take a photo at waypoint 1, would it just take a single photo or start interval shooting? Or do I manually start interval shots at waypoint 1, which would be a little tricky to get the timing right.
I set all waypoints to ‘no action’ and then I manually start interval shots at waypoint 1.
As the drone don’t stop at waypoints, the time is nearly the same that is displayed in the waypoint mission…
