Drone VR

[amstar]

Hi fellow droners,

So I have been experimenting with the Litchi VR mode for about a month now. First impressions that come to mind: Wow! Then, gawd this takes forever to get running, **** it froze again!!, WHERE am I (as in which part of the city is this?), I’m never doing immersive again…oh dear my I cracked my iPhone 6 plus.

So lets start the exciting adventure from the start:

Things you need:

1. Your drone and the controller. I used the most aged of my P4s and stock remote. The last thing you would want is a direction specific antenna mod (wind surfers, drone world etc.)

2. Ditch your iPADs my friends. You need a phone. The largest VR googles can take an IP6 +

And it should have more than adequate processing power. IP6+ was what I used.

3. Litchi app

4. VR goggles. Now there is a list on the litchi website, I used the Zeiss VR One plus Zeiss VR ONE Plus.

To go over the steps briefly: do all the preflight checks using the DJI GO app, close it. Open Litchi FPV. Get the drone in the air at a safe altitude (so the drone does not go after you or anyone while you are fidgeting around with the app). Take the phone out of the controller, switch to VR mode.

Now, you need to be very familiar with the settings as it uses the accelerometer, gyro and the compass on the phone, so the drone will move depending on your settings. Put the phone in the goggles making sure that it doesn’t get disconnected from the remote (only the Mavic connects to DJI Goggles wirelessly). Wear your goggles, make sure the view is properly aligned and the (phew!!) you are set to go.

Now the FPV mode with head tracking is pretty cool, my only gripe being the feed starts to lag and break up by about 2000 ft. I’m also around 600-700ft at that time. Here is where the directionless remote and the processing power of the phone also come into play.

The fun starts in the one of the modes, esp the immersive one. Man, you are so lost up there (I told you not to do this). Then the VR feed crashes, you have lost contact with the drone on your remote, quickly, take the head set off, pull the phone out, try to exit out of VR but Litchi is frozen dammit, ok, force exit the app, start DJI GO, try to estimate which direction the drone is, press the RTH and all right, I get some signal. Ok I see it. Exit RTH if you had used that, and then fly around casually if you still have battery while the summer sun dries your pants.

So VR has some way to go, but it is the future of drone flying. At least your mini me piloting the craft from the inside is worth it…

 

[jeffames226]

I never had any of the problems with Litchi VR mode like you described. Maybe its your iphone. Only complaint I would have about the Litchi VR is that the side by side screens could be larger providing better resolution. I tried DreamFlights and theirs is much larger and clearer but not as good as Litchi.

 

[amstar]

The side by side is for 3D rendering which actually is pretty good. Which phone did you use? And did you ever have a conflict in Immersive between your head motion and the RC. It seems your motion takes precedence.
It would also be better if the green compass has the directions marked on it.

 

[jeffames226]

The side by side is for 3D rendering which actually is pretty good. Which phone did you use? And did you ever have a conflict in Immersive between your head motion and the RC. It seems your motion takes precedence.
It would also be better if the green compass has the directions marked on it.

I use an iphone 7 plus. Never had a conflict but only use gimbal control when looking up and down. The side by side is only utilizing about half of the screen so it could be a little bigger on this phone.

 

[amstar]

I was going to say, the fastest GPU on the market now is the IP7/+. But as I said, if you only use the FPV and gimbal control, all's well and you are limited only by the VR feed lag, one of the factors for that being the GPU. I'm not sure to go for a iP7 just for that.
But if you use one of the advanced head tracking modes, immersive being my fav, then 1. It requires you to be already in the air to manually engage 2. You can control your craft both by your head movements and the RC. For example if I look right flying forward, the craft would fly in that direction as in a rudder input to the right. The software however does not completely override the RC though the AC also responds to the rudder input from the RC. However, if you go right with the RC while looking forward, the moment you release the rudder, the AC flies forward. That's where one can get lost in your bearings as the OSD has limited display.
I didn't get why side by side is using half your screen. It should have two identical images occupying the whole screen including the OSD at the bottom so that the images can be fused by your brain to get depth perception.

 

[John Locke]

It should have two identical images occupying the whole screen including the OSD at the bottom so that the images can be fused by your brain to get depth perception.

You can't get depth perception unless you have two cameras sending two images to the goggle, and that doesn't exist with DJI, yet. IMO having two images in the goggle is worthless, it only reduces the resolution by half. I think the single display setup like Headplay goggles provide a much better image, however you don't have the head movement navigation using Headplay since it lacks the head motion sensing that phones have. Someone needs to make a goggle phone holder that doesn't split the image, maximizing resolution, while using the motion sensing in the phone to provide craft navigation. The DJI goggles do this, but the control of the gimbal is a little rough. Gimbal movement look a bit jittery because the motion sensing in the DJI goggle is not high enough resolution to offer smooth camera movements.

 

[jeffames226]

I was going to say, the fastest GPU on the market now is the IP7/+. But as I said, if you only use the FPV and gimbal control, all's well and you are limited only by the VR feed lag, one of the factors for that being the GPU. I'm not sure to go for a iP7 just for that.
But if you use one of the advanced head tracking modes, immersive being my fav, then 1. It requires you to be already in the air to manually engage 2. You can control your craft both by your head movements and the RC. For example if I look right flying forward, the craft would fly in that direction as in a rudder input to the right. The software however does not completely override the RC though the AC also responds to the rudder input from the RC. However, if you go right with the RC while looking forward, the moment you release the rudder, the AC flies forward. That's where one can get lost in your bearings as the OSD has limited display.
I didn't get why side by side is using half your screen. It should have two identical images occupying the whole screen including the OSD at the bottom so that the images can be fused by your brain to get depth perception.

I do get two side by side images that covers the entire WIDTH of the screen but only about half the height of the screen split equally by black bars at top and bottom. Seems like a waste of good space they could have used to increase resolution.

 

[amstar]

You can't get depth perception unless you have two cameras sending two images to the goggle, and that doesn't exist with DJI, yet. IMO having two images in the goggle is worthless, it only reduces the resolution by half. I think the single display setup like Headplay goggles provide a much better image, however you don't have the head movement navigation using Headplay since it lacks the head motion sensing that phones have. Someone needs to make a goggle phone holder that doesn't split the image, maximizing resolution, while using the motion sensing in the phone to provide craft navigation. The DJI goggles do this, but the control of the gimbal is a little rough. Gimbal movement look a bit jittery because the motion sensing in the DJI goggle is not high enough resolution to offer smooth camera movements.

Then, why split if not to recreate a measure of stereopsis? We know you cannot have true depth perception without binocular vision but then to have two cameras with slightly offset views of the same image would perhaps be asking for too much at this time.