[OPEN BETA] Litchi Hub

[Kaehn]

Welcome Litchi Hub, the next-generation successor to Mission Hub.

Litchi Hub is a modern flight planning platform designed to make drone flight planning smarter, faster, and more collaborative.

It provides powerful planning tools, photorealistic 3D simulation, advanced mapping capabilities, and seamless integration with multiple DJI flight applications.

Plan, simulate, and manage complex drone flights entirely from your browser.
Try it now at https://hub.flylitchi.com

Overview

• Advanced Flight Planning
• Editing Tools
• Flight Management & Organization
• Google Earth 3D Planning
• Camera Projection
• Flight Simulation
• Area Mapping (Photogrammetry)
• KML Import for Mapping and Boundary Planning
• Flight App Integration
• Smart DJI Fly Export & Import
• Additional Features

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Advanced Flight Planning

Plan complex waypoint flights directly from your browser or mobile device with powerful editing tools and global flight settings.

Key capabilities include:

• Automatic saving — your changes are instantly preserved
• Global flight settings for fast setup
• Advanced flight path control with Smooth Curves and Straight Line modes
• Precise camera control with adjustable gimbal pitch
• Built-in Orbit and Spiral flight planning
• Advanced waypoint actions including Zoom and Bottom Lights

Currently some features are available only for drone models compatible with Litchi Pilot

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Editing Tools

Waypoint editing is fast and intuitive thanks to contextual controls.

Left-click allows you to add waypoints on the map or interact with map elements.

Right-click options allow you to:

• Insert a waypoint before or after
• Delete a waypoint or POI

Waypoint tooltips display key information, including:

• Heading
• Gimbal pitch angle

The Add Component button allows you to

• Add a Waypoint
• Add a POI
• Add an Orbit or a Spiral
• Add a Takeoff Point reference

The Transform Tool allows quick adjustments to entire flights.

Transform features include:

• Move a flight to a new location
• Rotate the flight path
• Scale the flight layout

This makes it easy to reuse the same flight in different locations

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Flight Management & Organization

Litchi Hub includes a powerful Flight Library system to manage flights efficiently.

Features include:

• Folders for organizing flights
• Search to quickly locate flights
• Flight sharing
• Real-time collaborative planning
• Drag & drop flight organization
• Multi-select operations for batch actions

Managing and organizing your flights has never been easier

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Google Earth 3D Planning

Litchi Hub includes advanced planning tools directly inside the Google Earth 3D environment.

The power of Google Earth at your fingertips

Capabilities include:

• Draw mapping areas directly in 3D
• Add Waypoints, Orbits, or Spirals at the camera location
• Hybrid map support
• Switch between Free camera and FPV camera modes
• Crosshair overlay showing camera direction
• Add flight components directly in the Google Earth view

Plan your flights directly inside a photorealistic 3D environment powered by Google Earth

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Camera Projection

Litchi Hub visualizes the drone camera projection directly on the map.

Whenever a waypoint is selected, the interface displays the exact camera field of view (FOV) for the selected drone and lens, available in both Free mode and FPV mode.

• Free Camera Mode
  

  

• FPV Camera Mode
  

  

This allows pilots to precisely preview what the drone camera will capture during the flight

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Flight Simulation

Flight simulation includes the same three visualization modes available during flight planning: 2D, 3D, and Google Earth’s photorealistic 3D.

• 2D Mode
  

  

• 3D Mode
  

  

• Google Earth (Free Mode)
  

  

• Google Earth (FPV Mode)
  

  

The simulation widget provides intuitive controls to preview and navigate your flight before takeoff.

Simulation tools include:

• Real-time drone simulation
• Adjustable playback speeds (up to 8×)
• Current waypoint settings display during playback
• Skip forward or backward between waypoints
• Timeline position slider
• Automatic waypoint selection during playback
• 2D & 3D flight simulation preview
• Google Earth–powered photorealistic simulation environment

Demo video

New Litchi Hub Beta

This allows pilots to preview flights using real terrain, buildings, and satellite imagery

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Area Mapping (Photogrammetry)

Litchi Hub includes built-in Area Mapping tools for planning automated photogrammetry flights.

Mapping features include:

• Automatic mapping grid generation
• Adjustable overlap settings
• Photo or video capture modes
• Custom gimbal angles
• Adjustable turn radius for curved turns
• Display of edge lengths on mapping boundaries
• Speed warnings when flight speed is too high
• Visual indicators for capture points
• Import mapping areas from KML or KMZ files

Mapping areas can also be drawn directly in the Google Earth 3D view

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KML Import for Mapping and Boundary Planning

Litchi Hub allows you to import KML files to reuse previously defined flight areas, either to set safe boundaries or to generate mapping areas.

KML files can be imported in two different ways in the Litchi Hub:

• As Boundaries — visualize a perimeter or area directly on the map and use it as a safety reference when planning a flight (Import File)

• As a Mapping Polygon — import the KML shape directly into the Area Mapping advanced settings (Import Mapping Area) to automatically generate the mapping area

This feature allows geographic shapes or previously flown areas to be reused when planning mapping flights, making it easier to define accurate boundaries and mapping areas

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Flight App Integration

When creating a flight, you can choose which application will be used to execute the flight.

The selected app determines the available flight settings, compatibility, export format, and flight behavior.

Supported flight apps include:

• Litchi Pilot
• Litchi For DJI Drones
• DJI Fly
• DJI Pilot

This allows you to execute the flight using your favorite flight app

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Smart DJI Fly Export & Import

Litchi Hub Bridge seamlessly connects Litchi Hub with DJI flight applications such as DJI Fly and DJI Pilot.

Flights can be exported and imported directly using the companion application Litchi Hub Bridge.

The companion app is available for Mac and Windows.

The full guide and setup instructions can be found here

Litchi Hub Bridge provides a simple way to export and import flights between Litchi Hub and DJI flight applications.

Export UI

Litchi Hub Bridge automatically transfers the KMZ flight file (DJI mission file) to the connected device.

Additional export capabilities include:

• Automatic split into multiple flights when a flight contains a large number of waypoints
• Optimized interval photo capture planning
• Automatic interval suggestions based on flight parameters

Watch the tutorial:

Automatically Transfer Waypoint Flights Between Litchi Hub and DJI Fly

Import UI

Flights created in DJI Fly or DJI Pilot can be imported directly into the Litchi Hub flight library.

This tool enables seamless interaction between Litchi Hub and DJI flight applications

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Additional Features

Litchi Hub also includes:

• Flight Engine Selection
• Enhanced KML exports including full Google Earth tours
• Multi-language support
• Ground elevation tooltips
• Automatic POI altitude calculation based on terrain and building height
• Straight-line waypoint support for DJI Fly
• GeoTIFF Overlay

Wide Compatibility — Litchi Hub supports most DJI drone models

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Start Planning Now!

[Sam_G]

So far, it’s great!
I do miss seeing the distances between all waypoints. It only shows adjacent distances when a waypoint is selected.
My guess, it was changed to unclutter the screen a bit. Could that possibly be something users can turn off or on?

[wesbarris]

Batch Edit Turn Radius Bug Report:
Batch editing curved turn radius only affects first waypoint selected.
Steps to reproduce:

1. Create new mission (drone type does not appear to be important)
2. Add five waypoints
3. Set path mode to curved turns in global settings
4. Turn Batch Editing mode on
5. Select the three interior waypoints
6. Change the “turn radius” under “Advanced”
7. The “turn radius” of only the first waypoint selected is altered.

Expected result: Turn radius of all selected waypoints should be modified.

Opinion: A global “turn radius” option should be available. When there are many waypoints, it becomes impractical to have to select them all to change each ones turn radius.

Opinion: In addition to the plus and minus signs and the numerical input, a slider is preferred for changing this value.

[wesbarris]

Feature Request:
When changing the heading at a waypoint, the waypoint icon should dynamically show the heading as the heading value is being altered.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create a waypoint mission
2. Select a waypoint
3. Change its heading mode to “transition”
4. Move the angle slider and notice that the corresponding icon only changes on a “mouse up” event.

Expected result: The waypoint icon should change as the value of the heading angle slider is changed. In JavaScript terms, the icon should be modified “onChange” instead of “onMouseUp”.

[wesbarris]

Feature Request:

Show minimum mission height when using the “Smooth Curves” path mode with a “DJI Fly” drone (such as the Mini 4 Pro).

Explanation:

When a flight path is created that passes through its control points (waypoints) and those control points (waypoints) are of varying heights, it is possible for the flight path to have a lower altitude than any of the waypoints. This characteristic of splines that pass through its control points is not obvious to many people. Consider a four-waypoint path using “Smooth Curves” where the waypoint heights are specified to be at heights 50, 10, 10, 50. In order for the flight path to pass through all four waypoints, it will be necessary for the path to be less than 10 units high between waypoints 2 and 3. There have been reports of people crashing their drone because they were unaware of this and the DJI Fly app did not warn them about this.

Recommendations:

Display the minimum path height somewhere on the map when its height is less than that of the lowest waypoint.

Highlight any path segment between two waypoints where the path segment height is less than that of the lowest of those two waypoints.

[Lewis]

Thanks for the update. Now i will try and learn how to use this lol.

[Sam_G]

@wesbarris

Batch Edit Turn Radius Bug Report:
Batch editing curved turn radius only affects first waypoint selected.

Its the same situation when changing Heading in Batch Edit mode. It only affects the first waypoint selected.

[Gary_Chrisman]

We sure you don’t close the current hub for the 1000’s still flying the Mavics and the Phantoms - that will put us out of business.

[vico]

The new Litchi Hub is mostly backwards compatible, so you should be able to migrate to it without any issues.

[vico]

@Sam_G

Its the same situation when changing Heading in Batch Edit mode. It only affects the first waypoint selected.

Batch Edit is not yet supported.

[vico]

@wesbarris

Feature Request:

Show minimum mission height when using the “Smooth Curves” path mode with a “DJI Fly” drone (such as the Mini 4 Pro).

Explanation:

When a flight path is created that passes through its control points (waypoints) and those control points (waypoints) are of varying heights, it is possible for the flight path to have a lower altitude than any of the waypoints. This characteristic of splines that pass through its control points is not obvious to many people. Consider a four-waypoint path using “Smooth Curves” where the waypoint heights are specified to be at heights 50, 10, 10, 50. In order for the flight path to pass through all four waypoints, it will be necessary for the path to be less than 10 units high between waypoints 2 and 3. There have been reports of people crashing their drone because they were unaware of this and the DJI Fly app did not warn them about this.

Recommendations:

Display the minimum path height somewhere on the map when its height is less than that of the lowest waypoint.

Highlight any path segment between two waypoints where the path segment height is less than that of the lowest of those two waypoints.

We agree that some safety features would be ideal and will consider it. For now you can check the 3D preview which should help a lot to prevent such issues.

[vico]

@wesbarris

Opinion: A global “turn radius” option should be available. When there are many waypoints, it becomes impractical to have to select them all to change each ones turn radius.

There is already a 25% default turn radius when adding new waypoints. We could add a global flight setting for that, would you prefer a percentage or a set radius in meters?

[Gary_Chrisman]

OK, sure hope so - thanks

[chrislaf]

I have only had a chance to take a brief look at the new Hub and am planning on exploring it more in the next few days.

So far this is what I like and don’t like.

Likes:
• new improved saved mission management
• 3D view of missions
• ability to preview mission

Don’t Like:
• couldn’t find the wrench tools anywhere (move, rotate, scale). I use these all the time.
• autosave - seems to autosave changes to missions so if I goof up and want to re-start there is no undo (couldn’t find it).

Chris

[wesbarris]

@vico

There is already a 25% default turn radius when adding new waypoints. We could add a global flight setting for that, would you prefer a percentage or a set radius in meters?

I am not experiencing a 25% default turn radius. Instead, when I go to the advanced settings for a waypoint, I see 0.7 feet as the turn radius. This is for waypoints that are 100+ feet apart.

It probably makes more sense to provide the global turn radius setting as a percent. If it were in meters or feet, the global setting could easily be outside the valid range for waypoints that are close together.

[wesbarris]

Feature Request:

The global “Heading Mode” (was “Path Mode”) options include: Follow Path, Locked, Manual, and Point of Interest. If one wishes to create a mission that transitions from specified headings at each waypoint, one must manually change the path mode of each and every waypoint. While this works, it is cumbersome.

It would make creating such a mission easier if there was another global “Path Mode” option of “Transition” or “Custom” (previously called “Custom” in the former hub). When selected, every new waypoint would default to the “Transition” heading mode in the waypoint editor panel.

[vico]

@chrislaf

Don’t Like:
• couldn’t find the wrench tools anywhere (move, rotate, scale). I use these all the time.
• autosave - seems to autosave changes to missions so if I goof up and want to re-start there is no undo (couldn’t find it).

1. These are not yet supported and will be added in a future update
2. Undo/Redo is at the bottom left - only shows up when there is something to undo

[vico]

@wesbarris

I am not experiencing a 25% default turn radius. Instead, when I go to the advanced settings for a waypoint, I see 0.7 feet as the turn radius. This is for waypoints that are 100+ feet apart.

When you add a new waypoint (say WP 4) while path mode is set to Curved Turns, the turn radius of the previous waypoint (WP 3) is adjusted automatically. It is set to 25% of the available space (the shortest distance between segments 2-3 and 3-4) for the turn taking into consideration the previous turn radius (at WP 2) which itself may limit the available space.

[vico]

@wesbarris

Feature Request:

The global “Path Mode” options include: Follow Path, Locked, Manual, and Point of Interest. If one wishes to create a mission that transitions from specified headings at each waypoint, one must manually change the path mode of each and every waypoint. While this works, it is cumbersome.

It would make creating such a mission easier if there was another global “Path Mode” option of “Transition” or “Custom” (previously called “Custom” in the former hub). When selected, every new waypoint would default to the “Transition” heading mode in the waypoint editor panel

I assume you meant Heading Mode.
The reason we don’t show Transition mode as a global flight setting is because you would have to set a per-waypoint heading angle anyway for it to be any useful. However it may be that it is still useful to reduce the number of clicks. We will consider adding it.