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):
Thanks for your help and, above all, your patience.
~ Larry