Autopilot - tips?

This is an Autopilot thread and we've been asked not to discuss the other 3rd party products here because there are other threads dedicated to them

...but since you brought it up - I think that attention should be called to the fact that AutoPilot is iOS only and Litchi might as well be Android only at this point. They advertise compatibility with iOS and Android - and they'll happily take money from iOS users - but 80% of their functionality is NOT available on iOS.

Since Autopilot is iOS only - most of the readers of this thread will be iOS users and I'd hate to see one of them go out and spend money on another 3rd party software because it was spoken highly of here without realizing how extremely limited it is on iOS. For iOS users, it's a big waste of money and sometimes it's difficult getting a refund from iTunes even if you can show you were clearly mislead. It's far better to avoid the purchase in the first place.

Hope this helps and clears things up for future people stumbling onto this thread.
It may help others however I didn't find it useful. I fly both. In the case of Autopilot I have been for longer than the 18 days you have been using it and seemingly managed to have become an expert.
image.jpeg

The above, from the litchi website, shows that out of 8 available options iOS supports 6 with android offering 7. The gap is closing fast. To say 80% functionality isn't available and it's a big waste of money is a big call, in any case not correct with respect to the feature set. I don't feel ripped off. I suspect many others don't feel cheated either.
 
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It may help others however I didn't find it useful. I fly both. In the case of Autopilot I have been for longer than the 18 days you have been using it and seemingly managed to have become an expert.
View attachment 50341
The above, from the litchi website, shows that out of 8 available options iOS supports 6 with android offering 7. The gap is closing fast. To say 80% functionality isn't available and it's a big waste of money is a big call, in any case not correct with respect to the feature set. I don't feel ripped off. I suspect many others don't feel cheated either.

I guess I should have added "avoid sarcasm and animosity" to the list I sent you. Oh well - baby steps I guess. I'll reply to your message as if every word in it was genuine.

Point taken about the Litchi compatibility. It does seem to be improving quickly. My comments were accurate up until April 5th when a new Litchi version was released. I don't check their website daily so I didn't know there was an update 4 days ago. In any case thanks for pointing that out. I see there is an iOS only feature called "track" and an android only one called "follow" - are they roughly equivalent? Does "track" mode follow the target or just keep the camera aimed at it? The website suggests that track might work the same way as the P4 Active Track feature. That would be a strong selling point if true! Also - I'm curious about the feature capabilities. For those features that they now claim to have support for both iOS and Android - is it equivalent support? Or does the Android version provide more control and more options?

I ask in the interest of providing accurate information to other readers. If someone was put on to Litchi based on an Android user telling them what was possible - those people could very well feel cheated if they purchased the iOS version and then found out that they couldn't do a lot of what they had purchased it to do. Others - such as yourself - may not have those same expectations going in and they could be completely satisfied with what they get! I did a quick Google search and found 2 posts from people that say the latest update is still seriously lacking for iOS users - but very few details - but definitely not as much as the 80% it seemed to be prior to the recent update. I think the right advice for iOS users is to do a little more investigation to make sure that the features they want are supported on the platform they want - and there are other threads that probably cover this in detail.

As for my expertise level with Autopilot - I didn't realize it was any kind of competition. I thought the whole point of this thread was for us to help each other. So what does it matter if I've learned as much as or more about Autopilot in 18 days than you've learned by owning it longer? Maybe I learn faster. Maybe I fly more? And maybe I don't. I try to help when/where I can and I'm not going to concede a point to you or anyone else based on seniority. I did read every single word in flight school at least 3 times and watched all of the video tutorials at least once - but again - I don't get why this particular point is important to you. If you're jealous - don't be. I pick things up faster than most people so try not to feel inadequate just because I may understand some things more fully than you. Maybe I know more about waypoints and you know more about follow mode and joe knows more about orbits. This thread is here so that we can all help each other. If you can't do that without applying arrogance and condescension to every post or without turning every thing into a contest, you're not going to earn very much respect and even fewer friends. You don't gain credibility simply by putting in time. You earn it by being helpful and providing good advice. And you'll earn a lot more respect if you can do so in a polite and friendly manner.

I'll go back and edit my previous post about the 80% difference to call out that it's no longer accurate. Thanks again for pointing out the recent update.
 
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I guess I should have added "avoid sarcasm and animosity" to the list I sent you. Oh well - baby steps I guess. I'll reply to your message as if every word in it was genuine.

Point taken about the Litchi compatibility. It does seem to be improving quickly. My comments were accurate up until April 5th when a new Litchi version was released. I don't check their website daily so I didn't know there was an update 4 days ago. In any case thanks for pointing that out. I see there is an iOS only feature called "track" and an android only one called "follow" - are they roughly equivalent? Does "track" mode follow the target or just keep the camera aimed at it? Also - I'm curious about the feature capabilities. For those features that they now claim to have support for both iOS and Android - is it equivalent support? Or does the Android version provide more control and more options?

I ask in the interest of providing accurate information to other readers. If someone was put on to Litchi based on an Android user telling them what was possible - those people could very well feel cheated when they purchase the iOS version and find out they can't do a lot of what they purchase it to do. Others - such as yourself - may not have those same expectations and be completely satisfied with what they get! I did a quick Google search and found 2 posts from people that say the latest update is still seriously lacking for iOS users - but very few details - and probably not as much as 80% as it seemed to be prior to the recent update. I think the right advice for iOS users is to do a little more investigation to make sure that the features they want are supported - and their are other threads that probably cover this in detail.

As for my expertise level with Autopilot - I didn't realize it was any kind of competition. I thought the whole point of this thread was for us to help each other. So what does it matter if I've learned as much as or more about Autopilot in 18 days than you've learned by owning it longer? Maybe I learn faster. Maybe I fly more? And maybe I don't. I try to help when/where I can and I'm not going to concede a point to you or anyone else based on seniority. I did read every single word in flight school at least 3 times and watched all of the video tutorials at least once - but again - I don't get why this particular point is important to you. If you're jealous - don't be. I pick things up faster than most people so try not to feel inadequate just because I may understand some things more fully than you. Maybe I know more about waypoints and you know more about follow mode and joe knows more about orbits. This thread is here so that we can all help each other. If you can't do that without applying arrogance and condescension to every post or without turning every thing into a contest, you're not going to earn very much respect and even fewer friends. You don't gain credibility simply by putting in time. You earn it by being helpful and providing good advice. And you'll earn a lot more respect if you can do so in a polite and friendly manner.

I'll go back and edit my previous post about the 80% difference to call out that it's no longer accurate. Thanks again for pointing out the recent update.
Tenly I am at a loss to understand your defensiveness and I certainly won't be drawn into personal insults. We are in agreement in at least one respect, this board is a frequented in the overwhelming majority by seemingly very good people with a common interest who share knowledge. I lurked here for a long time prior to joining and my enjoyment and advancement in the hobby has been helped greatly by this community. I had a lot of experience and stick time with other RC aircraft, some is of direct relavence to multirotors, a lot isn't- the knowledge and experience freely offered here has been and I expect will continue to be highly valuable.

I read most of the threads in the P3 forums. In recent times I have observed your apparent demeanour and seemingly opinionated and combative approach. As recently as today you launched at several members who didn't share your views on the need to provide an alternative to the currently implemented CSC command. Not so long ago you outright accused another user of pilot error sighting what you claimed to be a refusal to share flight logs as being the determining factor. It was later revealed that an experienced member confirmed there was an issue preventing log retrieval and ultimately DJI fixed the damage under warranty.

I don't feel special or singled out to the extent I am a recent victim of your assumption based attacks.

With respect to my comments on beta testing I do have a strong opinion there. Largely based on bad experiences where in more than one project we provided pre-production, prototype and in some instances bare development board level hardware to a pre qualified testers. I stand by what I said. It's my opinion only. I don't expect or need everyone to share my view.

With respect to Litchi your revised commentary and position I agree with. Allow those who are considering purchasing the product to make informed decisions. That is a lot different to your original opinion.

As to the features track is different to follow. It allows you to select an object in frame and will attempt to keep the camera focussed on it. It's pretty impressive. Follow uses GPS, currently tied to the the device attached to the controller. It is expected there will be a later magic leash option supported (you likely would be familiar I expect with airspace in AP, I suspect it will have similar functionality).

I don't know about you but my main intent here is the pursuit of my interest in and enjoyment of flying and all associated with this hobby. I will go back to that now.

Happy flying!
 
Waypoint. This was my first video u made with waypoint I believe using autopilot. Little slow but hey it's my first try at it.


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Tenly I am at a loss to understand your defensiveness and I certainly won't be drawn into personal insults. We are in agreement in at least one respect, this board is a frequented in the overwhelming majority by seemingly very good people with a common interest who share knowledge. I lurked here for a long time prior to joining and my enjoyment and advancement in the hobby has been helped greatly by this community. I had a lot of experience and stick time with other RC aircraft, some is of direct relavence to multirotors, a lot isn't- the knowledge and experience freely offered here has been and I expect will continue to be highly valuable.

There are some helpful and friendly people here, as I expected - but in the handful of threads I've participated in - and in the dozens of others that I've read without commenting on - I have unfortunately not seen an "overwhelming majority" of those good people you speak of. I participate in several Internet forums and there are trolls, instigators and a**holes in all of them - but here, there seems to be a much higher percentage of that class of member than on the other sites. I sincerely hope that as I continue to read and participate, I find more of those "very good people".

I read most of the threads in the P3 forums. In recent times I have observed your apparent demeanour and seemingly opinionated and combative approach.

I'll address those in a moment - but if you found those posts, you must have also found many posts where I am helpful, well spoken, polite, friendly - and provide good and well though out information/advice in greater number than my combative posts.

As recently as today you launched at several members who didn't share your views on the need to provide an alternative to the currently implemented CSC command.
Yesterday actually - but if you take the time to read the entire thread, you'll see that my posts were defensive. Compare my first few posts in that thread to the last few and note that my entire demeanour changes when a member with a different opinion, amongst other things - compares my 11 year old son to a crazy ape or chimp or monkey of some sort, calls me an unfit parent and to defends his opinion he presents a number of opinions and assumptions as fact and then tells me to drop the subject and/or take it to DJI.

For the most part - and almost exclusively - I don't start fights here, on the other forums I participate in or in person. But if someone starts a fight, I will certainly defend myself and usually escalate. If it turns out I'm in the wrong - which happens at most 5% of the time - I'll back down and apologize.

As far as I'm concerned, the only excuse for rudeness and impolite behaviour - from myself or others - is retaliation or defense. Some may disagree and say that those aren't good reasons. I respect their opinions and agree to disagree. I won't allow anyone to bully or censor me - and if someone is rude to me, they're going to get it back threefold.

There are an unusually large number of people here who appear to be here only to judge and belittle others. Part of me wishes I could filter them out completely and part of me is glad that I can't - so I can defend the person being oppressed - or at least offer a word of support for them. Arrogance and condescension appear to run rampant here also. It can be seen in almost every thread - including the CSC one that you mentioned. Short-sighted and narrow-minded are also traits i would have to use to accurately describe far too many members here - and it's funny how often arrogance and ignorance go ah d in hand here. I don't know how many forums your participate in that's aren't related to drones. I'm starting to wonder if it's just this particular forum or maybe any forum devote to this hobby? Does flying a drone inherently attract more people with those negative traits or is this forum just an anomaly? (The precious rant was rhetorical. No need to reply to any of it)
[/QUOTE]


Not so long ago you outright accused another user of pilot error sighting what you claimed to be a refusal to share flight logs as being the determining factor. It was later revealed that an experienced member confirmed there was an issue preventing log retrieval and ultimately DJI fixed the damage under warranty.

It wasn't his refusal to submit the logs as much as his refusal to even acknowledge 4 separate mentions of the logs in the first 7 pages of the thread and his incessant demands to be believed based on his word and his claims that he "did everything right". It's a funny thread actually. I still suspect pilot error was the root cause - but - he convinced DJI to repair it or free - so who knows. In any case - this is the only post I've made here that I wish I could take back. No matter what my personal thoughts were/are. There was no good reason for me to post the message I did. It was instigating - and I would have probably chastised someone else if they had posted something like that. So I'll give you the point on this one and admit I was out of line. But not the others - especially the CSC one!

You call me opinionated - and maybe I am - but most of my opinions are based on logic and can be backed up by facts. I've never denied anyone else the rugby to their own opinion if it is a valid opinion-based topic. If it's a fact-based topic - opinions are invalid. You can't have an opinion that there are 390 degrees in a circle because it's a fact that there are 360. As for opinion-based topics - so what if I have an opinion? So does everyone else. There's nothing wrong with comparing opinions, the reasons for them etc. At the end of it all, I've never attacked anyone for having an opinion that is different from mine. For opinion-based discussions you have to be willing to agree to disagree.

I don't feel special or singled out to the extent I am a recent victim of your assumption based attacks.

It's almost funny to hear you call my attacks "assumption based" - because this entire exchange started because you made a number of assumptions about me - all negative and all wrong - and then formed an opinion about my suitability for a beta test you have nothing to do with and no knowledge about their actual requirements for participation - and then you decided to present your opinion based on false assumptions as "advice" in a condescension and superior tone!

I fully admit that I escalated in my reply - but you most certainly instigated! You can't possibly think that your "advice" - even if it had been accurate - would have been well received - so what was your motivation for posting it if not to pick a fight? Well - congratulations, it worked!

With respect to my comments on beta testing I do have a strong opinion there. Largely based on bad experiences where in more than one project we provided pre-production, prototype and in some instances bare development board level hardware to a pre qualified testers. I stand by what I said. It's my opinion only. I don't expect or need everyone to share my view.

Fair enough - but the Autopilot beta is not your project and is set up very differently. I don't get how you could have possibly thought it relevant. AutoFlightLogic is not supplying hardware and may have very different goals. In the beta tests that I've run - we wanted some testers who were going to actively try to break the system - but we didn't want them exclusively - we also needed testers to use the system as it was intended to be used. Otherwise we would have caught bugs in the corner cases but possibly missed them in the core process flows. We even had a group that were not provided instructions of any kind and we instructed them to "just figure it out"


With respect to Litchi your revised commentary and position I agree with. Allow those who are considering purchasing the product to make informed decisions. That is a lot different to your original opinion.

Well I'm glad we finally agree on something. But as I explained - my original comments were based on what I knew of the previous version and I believe they were mostly accurate.

As to the features track is different to follow. It allows you to select an object in frame and will attempt to keep the camera focussed on it. It's pretty impressive. Follow uses GPS, currently tied to the the device attached to the controller. It is expected there will be a later magic leash option supported (you likely would be familiar I expect with airspace in AP, I suspect it will have similar functionality).

So with track - the drone would remain stationary or be flown manually by the pilot and the "track" would control the camera and keep it focused on the selected object which could be either stationary or moving ? And it works with the P3 ?

I don't know about you but my main intent here is the pursuit of my interest in and enjoyment of flying and all associated with this hobby. I will go back to that now.
Happy flying!

Likewise. There's just so much rudeness, arrogance, bullying, ignorance and condescension here that my frustration and annoyance builds and builds - it gets to such a high level that when I finally do have a reason to take exception to something directed at me - my response is often much more severe than is called for.

Peace.
 
Waypoint. This was my first video u made with waypoint I believe using autopilot. Little slow but hey it's my first try at it.


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Rise of a guy burning down an old mobile home Sunday just up the road from my house

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Strange. That first video still won't play for me.
In the second video - is that as close as you got to the fire? Why only 25 seconds of video?
 
Strange. That first video still won't play for me.
In the second video - is that as close as you got to the fire? Why only 25 seconds of video?
That's weird that it won't play. Plays fine for me. Yeah that's as close as I got. And I was down to about 45% on my battery and had to travel 1/2mile back to the house.
 
This is an Autopilot thread and we've been asked not to discuss the other 3rd party products here because there are other threads dedicated to them

...but since you brought it up - I think that attention should be called to the fact that AutoPilot is iOS only and Litchi might as well be Android only at this point. They advertise compatibility with iOS and Android - and they'll happily take money from iOS users - but 80% of their functionality is NOT available on iOS. . . . .
We seem to be in a world of A vs. B whether it's politics, mobile phones or third party flight apps. There is another choice. Spend a few extra bucks and play with several options. It's actually quite fun and enlightening.

-- zigs
 
Try again

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We seem to be in a world of A vs. B whether it's politics, mobile phones or third party flight apps. There is another choice. Spend a few extra bucks and play with several options. It's actually quite fun and enlightening.

-- zigs
Could not agree more. We have always encouraged our users to use the right tool for the job, and Autopilot isn't always the right tool. At the same time, we welcome comparisons and actively participate in the threads that are dedicated to that end. The goal is to provide you guys with as much information as possible so that you can choose the right tool for the job. Right now, if you want to fly beyond line of sight or out of signal range, Autopilot is not that tool.
 
Yep. That's good advice and I already am.

The request from autoflightlogic to keep this thread pure was definitely not meant as a snub to their competition. They actually said some very complimentary things about some of the other 3rd party offerings. There are already other threads out there for discussing the other apps and even comparisons between the apps and since this one is titled Autopilot Tips - they thought it would be nice if we could keep the discussion as pure to that as possible....(but it doesn't seem to be working very well so far...).
:)

And as far as 3rd party software is concerned - it's not so much A vs B as it is:
A vs B vs C vs D vs E vs F vs G vs H vs I
with new ones popping up every week!

There are some pretty cool niche and single purpose offerings out there.

I just downloaded Pix4dCapture and I'm looking forward to trying that out sometime soon!
 
Could not agree more. We have always encouraged our users to use the right tool for the job, and Autopilot isn't always the right tool. At the same time, we welcome comparisons and actively participate in the threads that are dedicated to that end. The goal is to provide you guys with as much information as possible so that you can choose the right tool for the job. Right now, if you want to fly beyond line of sight or out of signal range, Autopilot is not that tool.

Anything on the Autopilot feature roadmap for capturing 3D movies and pics?
 
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Try again

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It's still not working. I had something similar happen when I posted 2 videos for someone else. They were both stored under the same YouTube account with the same permissions and he could see one of them but not the other.

One thing you might check is whether somehow the "Allow embedding" setting got turned off on the one video.
 
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FWIW, all instances in this thread of the "Waypoint First Video" have played for me.

And that's odd because Verizon seems to dislike YouTube. I often get halfway through a video and receive an error message. Even worse for imbedded videos.

Is that large fenced in area a horse pasture? Is that your property or your neighbor?
 
Here are 2 flight plans I flew yesterday.

I was taking a closer look at your flight paths. Am curious as to why you use to many waypoints? Several seem to be fairly close, at the same altitude and in a straight line.

Here's a flight path I have set up. Similar to yours, but uses fewer waypoints.

Not that either is right or wrong. I'm just curious if there is a reason or advantage to the way you have it set up.


 
I was taking a closer look at your flight paths. Am curious as to why you use to many waypoints? Several seem to be fairly close, at the same altitude and in a straight line.

Here's a flight path I have set up. Similar to yours, but uses fewer waypoints.

Not that either is right or wrong. I'm just curious if there is a reason or advantage to the way you have it set up.


I started with probably twice as many way points in a given mission than i needed. Over time I got to the point where i would start out with the minimum required to roughly approximate the flight path adding and tweaking as needed. In most instances now i draw a line, let autopilot do its stuff and modify. Invariably my tweaking is confined to areas where a straight flight section is desired. AUTOPILOT does a fabtastic job on the curves.
 
Waypoint. This was my first video u made with waypoint I believe using autopilot. Little slow but hey it's my first try at it.


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Unless battery life and mission length is an issue i dont worry about things being on the slow side. You can usually speed things up in post, slowing down is more of a problem (not enough frames to retain nice motion). The exception to this is when you have wave action of other elements of known relative speed in frame (cars, boats, people) where often things look a bit off when they are travelling unrealistically fast.
 
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Is that large fenced in area a horse pasture? Is that your property or your neighbor?
Yes that is a horse pasture and that's my neighbors property.
 
I was taking a closer look at your flight paths. Am curious as to why you use to many waypoints? Several seem to be fairly close, at the same altitude and in a straight line.

Here's a flight path I have set up. Similar to yours, but uses fewer waypoints.

Not that either is right or wrong. I'm just curious if there is a reason or advantage to the way you have it set up.


I have no idea why there are so many waypoints. I setup my area and it gave all these waypoints. And then when I was changing stuff it was adding them and when I went to delete the waypoint it would make the line way to curved so I added the waypoint back to straighten it.
 

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