Litchi waypoints gimbal is glitchy

POI can be a little tricky I. e. if you select the option mission settings and then add another waypoint and another POI sometimes it can glitch so that the new WP is not infact setup to concentrate on its closest POI but instead the previous one etc. Setting up a simple mission like the one I asked you to with settings that should work, is a simple test that we maybe able to work from if indeed it does work.
 
POI can be a little tricky I. e. if you select the option mission settings and then add another waypoint and another POI sometimes it can glitch so that the new WP is not infact setup to concentrate on its closest POI but instead the previous one etc. Setting up a simple mission like the one I asked you to with settings that should work, is a simple test that we maybe able to work from if indeed it does work.

I didn't set up a POI though so it faced North the entire time. I checked the last mission I had that failed and it had 7 POIs at 0 altitude and the default in settings was interpolate. I also manually selected the degrees of pitch at each WP, one as low as -66. It didn't move down from it's starting point of -15. Sidenote: I usually select -10 or -15 when flying just to keep the horizon in view, but the props out of view if you know what I mean.

I also made sure all waypoints were facing the correct POI. This is what i s strange. I see your point but mine were checked and rechecked.
 
It could be that the pitch changes in what ever form you had them in did not translate well to the new Litchi version or it could be that you screwed something up, I wouldn't know without seeing your missions. What is it you want to achieve and I may be able to help you. Do you want to set a manual gimbal pitch but have the phantom face the selected POI'S?
 
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My backyard opens up to some foothills. Down the street about 5 blocks is a Wet & Wild. I was careful not to go over the park, maintained 100 AGL, and basically circled the park (from the outside) I wanted to face downward toward the recreation areas, pools, water slides, etc. Not a pervert, just wanted to film the park. Besides, you really can't much from 100 AGL anyway :) and I was careful not to fly over any people. The gimbal never moved from -15. I did another mission one time and caught my mistake of putting in positive values so the gimbal stayed at 0, but that wasn't the case this time. I'll have to go back and look this mission over very carefully. I guess one bad POI can screw things up?
 
My backyard opens up to some foothills. Down the street about 5 blocks is a Wet & Wild. I was careful not to go over the park, maintained 100 AGL, and basically circled the park (from the outside) I wanted to face downward toward the recreation areas, pools, water slides, etc. Not a pervert, just wanted to film the park. Besides, you really can't much from 100 AGL anyway :) and I was careful not to fly over any people. The gimbal never moved from -15. I did another mission one time and caught my mistake of putting in positive values so the gimbal stayed at 0, but that wasn't the case this time. I'll have to go back and look this mission over very carefully. I guess one bad POI can screw things up?
But why are you trying to set manual gimbal pitches? Focus POI sets the gimbal pitch for you.
 
Okay start a fresh mission, make 4 Waypoints this time perhaps 300 ft away from each other in a square, where way point 1 and 4 are opposite eachother, so it's a square with the bottom line missing. On the outside of the square between wp1 and wp2 add (POI 1) put it perhaps 10ft outside the flight path, now on the outside of the square between wp3 and wp4 add (POI 2) but put this maybe 1000ft outside of the flight path, make both of the POI settings 3ft altitude. Now on wp1 set the gimbal pitch to "Focus POI" and make sure under that (POI 1) is selected, do exactly the same for wp2, the same for wp3 except select (POI 2) and wp4 the same as wp3.

Now in mission settings
Heading: Waypoint Defined
Finish action: Nothing
Path Mode: Curved turns

Default Gimbal Pitch Mode: Focus Poi

Rotations Directions: Managed

Now run the mission.

Now you should see the phantoms yaw change and the pitch.

Your mission should look like this, notice the phantoms headings at the WP's.

Screenshot_20160529_011029.png


If this is successful just use it as a basic template to work from, drag POI1 over the first group of girls you want to perverse over and POI2 over the second group, the phantom and Litchi will do the rest, just avoid the children's pool......

But in seriousness as you drag POI2 around you should now see WP3 and WP4 heading dynamically changing, also if you click on WP3 or WP4 you will see the gimbal pitch has also changed.

Note this will only work whilst maintaining a link with the A/C, POI pitch changes don't work autonomously
 
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But why are you trying to set manual gimbal pitches? Focus POI sets the gimbal pitch for you.

I've used that many times without issue but this time it didn't work. I used strictly Focus POIs and in certain areas and knew where my drone would. From its vantage point, I would've expected a auto-calculated gimbal pitch of about -60-65, maybe -50-55 in some other areas, especially on the outskirts. I would put in a POI height of 3 at first and received an unexpected auto-calculated pitch of -23 in one such area and -30 in another. I thought to myself, that can't be right. So I put in a 0 value, even tried negative values. The auto-calculated pitch from Litchi only went to -25 or -34 and I saw a problem right away.

You see, I like to do large curved turns for smoothness and I suppose the WP itself, may be 100 feet back from the curve and that's where the Litchi app is setting its vantage point or auto gimbal pitch. Does Litchi calculate the distance for the curve? I don't think so. So 100 feet up, 100 feet away, and you may very well have around -30, makes sense, right? So I understand the curve is making the drone fly 100 feet closer to the corner of the park and I'm thinking it should have a pitch of at least around -60, maybe even lower. But, I tried it first at its own calculated pitch settings of -23, -32 and so on and, as expected, the camera was looking over the POI, not down at it. In fact, it may have still been at its starting WP of -15, as any change was hard to tell.

Next attempt, I switched those WPs to interpolate and manually entered pitch values of around -60. That didn't work and it was now obvious that it didn't even budge the gimbal from its first WP settings of -15 as I was instead looking over the park, not down onto it. So I thought I would switch all of my WPs to interpolate, the default to interpolate, and manually set the pitch at each WP, POIs if any, and hoped that would work. Nope. On my last try, I went even more extreme. I set some of my negative pitch values even lower as this run was to be a test run now, some set as low as -80. Still the gimbal didn't move from its initial WP of -15 and, if it did, only slightly. I know that it may not make it to the desired setting if the previous WP is -15 and the next one is -80 and the two are 20 feet apart, going 20mph, especially if the WP after those take it back up to -30, the Phantom will do its best to smoothly make the transitions but may not have enough time to make it from -15 to -80 and back up to -30. But I know this and didn't set it up that way. I made gradual changes over several WPs to go from -15 to -80.

The entire mission has 29 WPs, 7 POIs, the WPs on the way have no POIs and as we approach, WPs are given specific POIs to point in the general direction of (since in interpolate, that's all it will do as it needs your manual pitch settings). Each WP has been given a specific pitch angle, most are -15 to fly the 5 blocks to the park, then gradually decrease until reaching -75 (just reviewed and changed a few things in the entire mission). I didn't change much and on my last attempt, I was still looking over the pool and basically over the entire park. The pitch may have changed slightly from its initial -15 but, if it has, it would be hard to tell and it should be a huge noticeable difference to -80 (as it was at that attempt). I go back to my reference about making severe pitch and direction changes in short distances and at high speeds. You're asking your drone to do the impossible, so it likely averages it out and does its best, bless its heart. But I didn't set it up with severe changes like that. I'm really perplexed on this one and if you have any ideas, I'm all ears. After reviewing just now and making a few minor changes, I'm going to head back out and try one more time. I'll report if it's a success. Nothing I can see in my mission is terribly wrong. But one more try anyway. By now, the people at Wet & Wild think I AM a pervert, especially if the ones who may have noticed my drone fly over before see it again. It's getting late, close to park closing but still enough daylight.

I've had the P3 and now the P4. I've been a Litchi freak for many months now and LOVE the app. This is the first time I've had these issues.

Oh, if you want to see how well the Litchi app works with the P4 collision avoidance system, go to this link...interesting. It was one of my miscalculated altitude mistakes during a mission and Litchi and DJI saved my bird. I was doing 21mph. It's from my first and only youtube channel, but the channel is lame right now as I only have two videos posted. Everything you see there (2 vidoes) is behind my house. I have editing to do of some more videos but I'm rather a novice at editing so it takes me a while. Two videos only and still I managed to get 2 subscribers. Haha. Now I feel pressured to deliver on the entertainment. Here's the link to the collision avoidance in Litchi (short video, three close calls):

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Thanks for your help and, above all, your patience.
~ Larry
 
Ok, I'll try that mission and report the results. I wrote such a long reply, I didn't see your last message. Thanks.
 
@Larry56 That video was absolutely wreckless flying... I like it a lot. I understand everything your saying about curved turns and unexpected pitches, and I think that you are right in the sense that massive curved turns will mess with the Focus POI pitch settings, calculating this would be asking a bit much from the app in a programming sense, and possibly even impossible to implement using the SDK, the easy remedy would be to draw a curved turn using way points, that will make the transition smooth whilst still auto calibrating Focus POI pitch, try that example I posted and see how it works, you did pay attention to what I said about this not working autonomously right? You have to have connection to the A/C for this to work.
 
Ok, I'll try that mission and report the results. I wrote such a long reply, I didn't see your last message. Thanks.

This time the Wet & Wild Tour worked, however, since I didn't use POI (due to the large curves in my turns) I went with interpolate and entered negative values, some as low as -70. Everything worked as I had set up but -70 proved to be too low and I got only the outer edge of the pool.

I figured something out though and it's important. Since your altitude is based on your take-off point (home base), using a topographical map (always a good tool), I discovered Wet & Wild is 100 feet below home base (MSL). I needed to make all my POIs in that area minus 100 feet + the height of whatever I was shooting. Otherwise, using Focus POI, I'd always be 100 feet over the target. The calculated pitches now make sense and I'll have to try another run. Yeah, I don't quit until I get it as close to perfect as possible. And for your information, at 100 feet in altitude, you can't see crap. I couldn't even tell a babe from a dude at that height. So much for being an aerial pervert. LOL. But the aerials did look great and I got to see the giant toilet bowl.

I tried your test and it worked out perfectly, though I do prefer curved turns. That was the first time I tried straight turns and the drone pauses at each WP. Didn't like that.

Thanks for your help.
 
@Larry56 you did pay attention to what I said about this not working autonomously right? You have to have connection to the A/C for this to work.

I paid attention but didn't quite understand that line. So the RC has to maintain signal for the POI calculations to work properly? Are you referring to when your subject (POI) is moving? Or does this also apply to stationary objects like buildings, landmarks, and such? I'll have to google this as I'm not quite clear on what that means.
 
@Larry56 That video was absolutely wreckless flying... I like it a lot.

Yeah, that was incredibly wreckless and stupid! I only posted it to show the collision avoidance, not to brag. What I wanted was a low and fast flight through the foothills and luckily I tried it slow first. Face it, foothills tend to be a tad boring from high altitudes. The flight was all autonomous and I was darn lucky for the collision avoidance or I would have been hiking awhile for my busted up drone. I'll never do that again. Well, I did do it one more time, adjusting for altitude in those 3 areas and eventually got the footage I wanted. Onto to other things, less wreckless missions.
 
Good convo on Litchi features guys! Been following for sure! Still working on creating solid missions too.
 
Note this will only work whilst maintaining a link with the A/C, POI pitch changes don't work autonomously

Ok, I think I understand. I read that section of the Litchi manual again and it said the pitch can be programmed as long as it maintains signal with the RC or something to that effect. So, I'm guessing that WPs and POIs are uploaded onto the A/C when you load the mission but the pitches of the gimbal are not. So, this information must reside on the RC then and that's why the operator must maintain radio contact. I would ask why is this so? Not enough memory on the A/C to store these commands? I also read you cannot override the POI pitch settings from the RC. I know because I've tried and although it DOES allow the operator to change the pitch during flight, as soon as it arrives at the next WP, it obeys the commands written in the mission and immediately goes back to whatever was programmed and you're constantly fighting the pre-programmed commands. I can maybe see interpolate being this way, where each WP's pitch is individually programmed (memory intensive). But with Focus POI, I would think it would take less memory and they could send those commands up to the bird when you're loading the mission. Seems odd is all that they wouldn't allow that. The drone will travel to each WP autonomously, turn toward the POI autonomously, why stop there? Again, I can't imagine this being by choice so it must be memory constraints. There's certainly no safety reason I can think of for not allowing these commands to travel up to the bird with the mission when loading it.
 
Larry Id doubt it's a memory constraint, all I know is it is a limitation in DJI's SDK and right now is apparently impossible to implement, this COULD change in the future. You could use curved turns with the setting I said to use, you could just use smaller curves, this won't throw the auto focusing using POI's off too much. You could also try a wp just before the curve and just after it to perhaps help with the auto heading and pitch, set these wp's to use very tiny curves so the craft doesn't stop and adjust.
 
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Larry Id doubt it's a memory constraint, all I know is it is a limitation in DJI's SDK and right now is apparently impossible to implement, this COULD change in the future. You could use curved turns with the setting I said to use, you could just use smaller curves, this won't throw the auto focusing using POI's off too much. You could also try a wp just before the curve and just after it to perhaps help with the auto heading and pitch, set these wp's to use very tiny curves so the craft doesn't stop and adjust.

Understood. Maybe in time, hopefully they'll add that feature. Either way, Litchi is a great app and I love it. I've also changed my default curves to very small. Other apps I've tried are Auto Pilot and FPV's Mission Planner. Auto Pilot I need to educate myself on but I've been toying around a little with FPV's MP app. Just afraid to use it for anything far. I read some good things about MP and tried a few short missions (mostly testing). It worked as expected. But I've developed such a trust in Litchi now, it's hard to change apps. There are now 2 features I do like in FPV's MP. The first is the elevation detail at each WP, the second is the wand, a semi-transparent line which tells you exactly where you need to aim your antenna, and the third (just added) is that the gimbal pitches are uploaded to the A/C.

Did you read my message about the elevation at W&W being 100 feet below my HP? That's also explains why my POI elevations were thrown off. Flew the mission again (using Litchi), adjusted the POIs to subtract 100 feet from the POIs, and the focus worked like a charm, though the A/C was flying at 200 feet AGL, not 100 as I planned. I'm using the latest Litchi beta version and, though the gimbal changed its pitch throughout the flight, it did it somewhat choppily as it flew further away and signal strength became an issue. It also made pitch changes abruptly at times. Likely the signal strength was the culprit for all of these.

If I use Mission Planner for the same mission and was able to trust their elevation detail (yikes), I'd be using altitudes of 3 feet or below at some WPs to achieve 100AGL. That scares the $hit out of me. Though I'm confident W&W is right at about 100 below my home point (used a topographical map to confirm), and I know I have to set my altitude at those WPs based on my HP, entering altitudes of 3 feet or negative at some WPs scares me. I could try using the FPV-MP app trusting in their elevation calculations at each WP, which all happen to coincide with my topographical map, but I'm hesitant to say the least. The good thing is I have full signal for most of the journey. If I see the ground coming up on the video feed...ABORT! If I do grow a set to try this, I'll report my results. Still debating. I'd much rather attempt this with Litchi, since MP is still relatively a new app for me. Not even aware if Litchi allowing for negative altitude settings, never had the need to try.

Regardless of the wrecklessness you saw in my video link, I'm not a big risk taker. :)
 
Understood. Maybe in time, hopefully they'll add that feature. Either way, Litchi is a great app and I love it. I've also changed my default curves to very small. Other apps I've tried are Auto Pilot and FPV's Mission Planner. Auto Pilot I need to educate myself on but I've been toying around a little with FPV's MP app. Just afraid to use it for anything far. I read some good things about MP and tried a few short missions (mostly testing). It worked as expected. But I've developed such a trust in Litchi now, it's hard to change apps. There are now 2 features I do like in FPV's MP. The first is the elevation detail at each WP, the second is the wand, a semi-transparent line which tells you exactly where you need to aim your antenna, and the third (just added) is that the gimbal pitches are uploaded to the A/C.

Did you read my message about the elevation at W&W being 100 feet below my HP? That's also explains why my POI elevations were thrown off. Flew the mission again (using Litchi), adjusted the POIs to subtract 100 feet from the POIs, and the focus worked like a charm, though the A/C was flying at 200 feet AGL, not 100 as I planned. I'm using the latest Litchi beta version and, though the gimbal changed its pitch throughout the flight, it did it somewhat choppily as it flew further away and signal strength became an issue. It also made pitch changes abruptly at times. Likely the signal strength was the culprit for all of these.

If I use Mission Planner for the same mission and was able to trust their elevation detail (yikes), I'd be using altitudes of 3 feet or below at some WPs to achieve 100AGL. That scares the $hit out of me. Though I'm confident W&W is right at about 100 below my home point (used a topographical map to confirm), and I know I have to set my altitude at those WPs based on my HP, entering altitudes of 3 feet or negative at some WPs scares me. I could try using the FPV-MP app trusting in their elevation calculations at each WP, which all happen to coincide with my topographical map, but I'm hesitant to say the least. The good thing is I have full signal for most of the journey. If I see the ground coming up on the video feed...ABORT! If I do grow a set to try this, I'll report my results. Still debating. I'd much rather attempt this with Litchi, since MP is still relatively a new app for me. Not even aware if Litchi allowing for negative altitude settings, never had the need to try.

Regardless of the wrecklessness you saw in my video link, I'm not a big risk taker. :)

Okay the POI auto focus will adjust the gimbal pitch itself depending on the waypoint altitude, all that matters is that you select the correct POI setting altitude, which in your case would be -100ft, try it, change a way points altitude now click to the next way point and back to the one who's altitude you just changed, and you will see the gimble pitch has changed. Thats why you noticed your POI auto focus worked like a charm.

The invisible wand on MP is a cool idea, personally I wouldn't trust it's topology, infact I wouldn't trust any topology, what if there has been some recent structure erected there, when I set up out of range autonomous missions I always fly too high the first time and work down from there, even if that means I run, review the video and adjust the mission 3x. I do run missions very very far away so the topology could be massively different from home point.

If you undershoot a WP altitude and said WP is over flat land you wont necessarily come crashing in to the floor, infact you have a good chance of the phantom landing!
 
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Okay the POI auto focus will adjust the gimbal pitch itself depending on the waypoint altitude, all that matters is that you select the correct POI setting altitude, which in your case would be -100ft, try it, change a way points altitude now click to the next way point and back to the one who's altitude you just changed, and you will see the gimble pitch has changed. Thats why you noticed your POI auto focus worked like a charm.

The invisible wand on MP is a cool idea, personally I wouldn't trust it's topology, infact I wouldn't trust any topology, what if there has been some recent structure erected there, when I set up out of range autonomous missions I always fly too high the first time and work down from there, even if that means I run, review the video and adjust the mission 3x. I do run missions very very far away so the topology could be massively different from home point.

If you undershoot a WP altitude and said WP is over flat land you wont necessarily come crashing in to the floor, infact you have a good chance of the phantom landing!

Totally agree. I did try the MP app and it worked very well. The elevation calculations were at least very close and I gave myself plenty of wiggle room, just in case. I was able to view the flight live through all but a few seconds and it never came close to the ground. I know now that the MP app works well when signal is weak or lost and, at that distance, the gimbal changes were all still smooth in the MP app.

I do the same thing as you, fly the route higher than desired at first, then make small adjustments each time I fly the route until I get what I want. The 3 near crashes in that link were a few mistaken calculations on my part and it only takes one to destroy your drone. I wanted low and fast and I ended up with almost that in the end. I just didn't get as low as I had wanted, otherwise I would remained no higher than 30 feet AGL at all times. Now that would've been exciting. But it was way too much to hope for. I put the video link below. You can fast forward through it to the low altitudes runs as the entire video is about 9 minutes and the only truly exciting parts are when I'm flying low. I shouldn't say that as I was actually pretty pleased with the whole video. And all from my backyard. I just happened to get lucky and rented a house that backs up to the foothills. Look at this run and imagine being only 30-50 feet off the ground the entire time. Now that would've been something.

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It's in UHD4K if you have Chrome or something that'll play that high a resolution.

The exciting parts come after the first turn.
 
Okay the POI auto focus will adjust the gimbal pitch itself depending on the waypoint altitude, all that matters is that you select the correct POI setting altitude, which in your case would be -100ft, try it, change a way points altitude now click to the next way point and back to the one who's altitude you just changed, and you will see the gimble pitch has changed. Thats why you noticed your POI auto focus worked like a charm.

The invisible wand on MP is a cool idea, personally I wouldn't trust it's topology, infact I wouldn't trust any topology, what if there has been some recent structure erected there, when I set up out of range autonomous missions I always fly too high the first time and work down from there, even if that means I run, review the video and adjust the mission 3x. I do run missions very very far away so the topology could be massively different from home point.

If you undershoot a WP altitude and said WP is over flat land you wont necessarily come crashing in to the floor, infact you have a good chance of the phantom landing!


Well, as it turns out Mission Planner is the same as Litchi as far as needing radio contact for gimbal pitch assignments. Tried another mission on MP which took me out of radio range and the gimbal stayed at 0 the entire time. Might as well stick with Litchi, a better app anyway. I don't quite understand why they don't allow that on autonomous flights. Thought it was always part of the mission uploaded.
 
Ran a Litchi mission for the first time today. I was flying the mission with one of my P3 Standards. Everything set up the way you show. Headings Waypoint Defined. Gimbal Pitch set to Focus POI. Correct POI's are set for the waypoints. Aircraft yaws towards POIs properly but the camera tilt never moved the entire flight. I deliberately set the focus point at 3' & flew almost directly over several POIs just to get a dramatic fly over yaw/tilt but no camera tilt on any POI.

It I drag a POI around I see the aircraft pointers moving & the gimbal pitch adjusts it just doesn't do it in flight. Going to try the identical flight with my P3A just to make sure it isn't an issue with my Standard (which incidentally also isn't reading 32GB memory cards).

Okay start a fresh mission, make 4 Waypoints this time perhaps 300 ft away from each other in a square, where way point 1 and 4 are opposite eachother, so it's a square with the bottom line missing. On the outside of the square between wp1 and wp2 add (POI 1) put it perhaps 10ft outside the flight path, now on the outside of the square between wp3 and wp4 add (POI 2) but put this maybe 1000ft outside of the flight path, make both of the POI settings 3ft altitude. Now on wp1 set the gimbal pitch to "Focus POI" and make sure under that (POI 1) is selected, do exactly the same for wp2, the same for wp3 except select (POI 2) and wp4 the same as wp3.

Now in mission settings
Heading: Waypoint Defined
Finish action: Nothing
Path Mode: Curved turns

Default Gimbal Pitch Mode: Focus Poi

Rotations Directions: Managed

Now run the mission.

Now you should see the phantoms yaw change and the pitch.

Your mission should look like this, notice the phantoms headings at the WP's.

Screenshot_20160529_011029.png


If this is successful just use it as a basic template to work from, drag POI1 over the first group of girls you want to perverse over and POI2 over the second group, the phantom and Litchi will do the rest, just avoid the children's pool......

But in seriousness as you drag POI2 around you should now see WP3 and WP4 heading dynamically changing, also if you click on WP3 or WP4 you will see the gimbal pitch has also changed.

Note this will only work whilst maintaining a link with the A/C, POI pitch changes don't work autonomously
 

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