Flight Planning Software Options

Fairly new DD user here. Been lurking to learn and reluctant to post just because I’m not sure I know enough to add to the conversation. But the handful of mapping missions I’ve run on a P4P on FW rolled back to pre-NFZ restrictions with manual focus and 12 mph speeds have had irregular spacing of photos. I doubt I’d have noticed it yet without having been reading the forum. So +1 on experiencing the problem. Keenly interested in the solution.

MichaelL – I’ve seen some of your posts mentioning running mapping missions with Litchi. I’ve used LItchi waypoint missions extensively for monthly aerial photo updates, but don’t know how to use it to plan/run mapping missions. Would enjoy reading how to do that when you can find a “round-to-it”. Sounds like a possible work around until DD gets the problem sorted out.

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Hey @modbuilder, good to hear from you. Honestly, Litchi is like my Swiss Army knife. The only times I have used it for mapping similar to what you would do in DroneDeploy is in extreme circumstances with features like very irregular shapes, the need for a ton of POI’s or crazy terrain changes. Since we have simple progress photos, videos and panos in DD now its use has started to wane. You can setup the lawnmower pattern though just by using the last waypoint you set as a measurement guide to keep your spacing right. I calculated that with the P4P at 260ft 75% overlaps is about 120ft spacing and the speed should be at about 22mph with a 2 second shutter.

As an alternative to DroneDeploy for now I would use Pix4D Capture. There are several pretty good ones out there, but Capture is tried and true.

To me though Litchi is worth it’s weight in gold. How much does an app weigh? :thinking: Maybe not such a good analogy…

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I used Pix4D, DD, DroneHarmony and Litchi. Each has there strong points. DroneHarmony is relative new to the Capture game but it has some very strong Missions (Kinda like Pix4D and Litchi combined with additional features). Pix4d is weak on releasing new updates after DJI has released new firmware, which breaks Pix4D sometimes for weeks. Litchi and DD are all over the DJI firmware updates.

@modbuilder, thanks for your input that helps a lot because now we can start building a case for DD to study. The more data and steps to recreate the quicker they can find a solution if it’s their issue or work with DJI to resolve DJI’s issue.

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Haven’t tried DroneHarmony yet. I will now though. Thanks.

**Oh wait… no iOS?

Michael,

I’d love to learn about how you are using Litchi – I have some tricky terrain to map.

Are you using iOS or Android?

Happy to help. The interface can be a little confusing because of the diversity of the flight plans, but it’s really not too bad. The best thing is the terrain-following. my suggestion on running a map with great elevation differences is to run parallel with the slope.