What does this new feature mean: "... starting their DD flight... at altitude."

I noticed this in the “What’s new” for version 2.61.0 iOS app: “We’ve removed a waypoint at the beginning of the mission which was causing problems for those starting their DD flight while already at altitude.”

This sounds like something I’ve been waiting for, but the description doesn’t give a complete picture in my head, so I’m not sure. I run surveys of surfaces near sea-level, but monitor/control from ~20m ASL. I noticed early on that if I launch the UAV from my control site, the capture altitude is too high. I assume this is because the altitude setting in DD (40m here) references the launch point, resulting in (20+40) ~60m ASL. So I make a point to always launch from sea level (then move to the control site) to make sure DD has a correct 0m ASL reference point. With this new feature, should I expect that I can launch from 20m ASL with an altitude of 40m set in DD, and expect that the UAV will capture at 40m ASL (20m above launch site), rather than 60?

If so, that would be brilliant!

The feature this is referencing is when someone takes off their drone before starting their drone deploy mission. The altitude the mission flies at would still be the same as before.

Thanks for the response, that makes sense. I’d love to see this as a feature (set a take-off altitude to compensate for an altitude difference between take-off site and survey area), so I’ll take a look at adding it in feature requests.

Cheers!