I’m fairly new to Litchi, but have been using it for about 9 months now. I fly a DJI Mavic 2 Pro/Zoom, and use Ipad 4 with regular RC, as well as the DJI smart controller.
I was contracted out to do both video’s and photographs of a road construction project. My client requested that I do video in one direction, and photographs in the other. I set the mission up in flight hub, and it appeared with the use of my smart controller. I had the first waypoint start recording, and when I get to the waypoint (#6) to turn around, I set it to stop recording. Every waypoint after that was set to take photo. When it turned around, it never stopped recording, and continue to record the remainder of the flight instead of taking photos.
So thinking it was a problem with the smart controller, I started using the Ipad with regular RC, and it continued to do the same thing. I didn’t have any POI in mission, just had the gimbal pitched at -20 degrees for both the photographs and videos.
Any thoughts or suggestions on this problem I’m experiencing?
A mission designed to take video generally has the “Path Mode” set to “Curved Turns”. A mission designed to take photos requires that the “Path Mode” be set to “Straight Lines”. You cannot mix both in the same mission.
I’m assuming I can just set straight lines for the missions and remove the curves. It’s a straight roadway and no need for curves. Should that correct the problem?
paxxa,
Why would you do this mission twice with curves and with straight lines?
Seems like that would be a waste of time and resources. But that is just my opinion.
Educate me, please.
@Jim_Smithheisler , the OP’s client wants a video and also a set of photos of the entire length of the project, so it needs to be flown twice, so the easiest way is to have 2 projects, one for video which will have curves, and one set up to capture photos which will be straight, and it takes no real time in planning the mission as you start with the video mission, then copy it and change it to curve in the mission settings
Doesn’t seem to be really the same mission with just different path mode settings. As stated the video is taken going in one direction and the photos are taken going in the other direction.
Granted, to me anyway, this would be confusing when trying to match photos with footage, but the client’s request does take precedence. Unless I can convince the client of the error of his ways, that is.
My solution would be to set heading Mode to “Toward Next Waypoint” (to keep the camera pointed in the direction of flight), Path Mode to “straight lines” (to trigger waypoint actions) and Photo Capture Interval to “disabled” (to ensure I have full control of the camera’s capture mode).
I would then make the following changes to the original mission waypoints:
At waypoint 1, I would tilt the camera at -20° and start recording.
At waypoint 6, I would stop the recording, wait for 5 seconds to clear the capture buffer, and take a photo.
For the rest of the waypoints, quadfather’s settings should be sufficient.
Although, if the waypoints are close together and/or the speed is relatively fast I would probably add a “Stay for 2s” after each photo so the image has time to be written.
My comment on time and resources was about aircraft usage and hazard exposure. Probably not really germaine to anything.
And you can’t combine them in one mission as photos and other such commands only work on straight line missions
Of course the other way to this is set up a photo mission for the outbound flight and then seeing as it’s a straight road set the RTH height the same or below that of the mission, then as the drone is turning round manually slip it into video mode and hit the capture button, then it will record the video as it comes home
I don’t understand how copy will work if you have to take pictures going in the other direction from the video.
Or maybe it will if you also change settings to reverse the course and start from the last waypoint. Never tried that.
Personal problem I have is dealing with very small print, bright sunlight and fat fingers on the very small (relatively speaking, compared to a 32" gaming monitor) screen of a smart controller.
Good call.
I’d forgotten about the RTH trick.
I used it once when I had to determine the obstacles along a radio communications line of sight path between two antennas separated by rolling, wooded terrain.
I set the RTH altitude 10’ above highest antenna and the home point to the antenna location. Flew the aircraft to the second antenna, descended to below RTH, started the video and hit RTH.
Worked like a charm.
I use a samsung galaxy tab 7FE 5G to fly with, nice 12.4" display, couldn’t with that titchy screen the so called smart controller has, even my stand by device (my normal phone, samsung galaxy z fold 2) has a 7.6" screen
No copy is needed.
In curves mode, the drone looks at poi. In straight lines mode to the next waypoint and takes photos. This is one mission and only requires you to switch modes.
In refence to my original post. The client now wanted to go all video and not do photographs on the return. I reset all of my waypoints, but when flying the mission, the aircraft pauses at each waypoint as if it’s taking a picture, but then continues on with all video. Should I go back to curved lines to remove this pause, or is this something totally different?
If your Path Mode is set to Straight Lines, there will be a slight pause at each waypoint. Setting that mode to Curved Turns will eliminate those pauses.
