For someone knowledgeable about Litchi.

[GMack]

Can this be done as a test or pre-planned mission before getting to the flying site?

Waypoint #1 Altitude 300 feet.
Waypoint #2 Altitude 50 feet.

Between the two, I'd like to do a straight-down vertical descent between them while yawing the drone through 1,080 degrees or three rotations (i.e. A spiral drop, or what some pilots call a "Graveyard spiral."). Camera lens facing down in Movie mode.

At Waypoint #2, exit the rotational spiral and fly off to Waypoint #3 or Home.

Tia.

 

[Mark The Droner]

My understanding is you cannot do a straight down with Litchi waypoints.

 

[neven]

My understanding is you cannot do a straight down with Litchi waypoints.

You can, just put one WP over another with different altitude. As for OP question about spiral rotation that can be done by calculating few WPs with same GPS coordinates but different altitudes and different heading and gimball pitch.

 

[GMack]

You can, just put one WP over another with different altitude. As for OP question about spiral rotation that can be done by calculating few WPs with same GPS coordinates but different altitudes and different heading and gimball pitch.

Thanks for the info as I don't own Litchi yet (I'm just watching their training videos), but I have Autopilot and it does not have a 360 degree movie rotation. You have to do it via joystick, in my understanding of it, as well as their support idea to go manual in "Cruise" mode (Non-automated flight.).

Problem I see with both programs is when stacked vertically in 2D for planning a spiral-down flight, you cannot set up a lot of "Do something here" command points beneath the top one easily since you are viewing from the top. In Autopilot I have to make a short horizontal run of waypoints and try and place a bunch of rotational "Focus Camera" commands (24 I think to do three rotations) and it isn't smooth nor is the timing between the waypoints easily set or calculated for both the speed of the rotation as well as the descent speed, hence it becomes jerky. You can do panoramas though, but doing a smooth movie rotation isn't so easy between stacked vertical waypoints that I've found.

 

[FASTFJR]

If I get a chance I'll go out this afternoon and try to do what you want

 

[GMack]

If I get a chance I'll go out this afternoon and try to do what you want

Thanks FASTFJR!

I was going to try something at a soccer field using their center circle as a reference to spin down too, but the junior leagues are in session this weekend and local parks here are drone free ordinance zones.

I'm surprised Autopilot missed this one. They have Hover, Vertical (Incl. ascend and descend speeds.), and Panorama (For stills only!), but no rotational full 360 degrees for Movie, just a +/-180 which means you have to use multiple ~120 degree movements to make a full circle and it doesn't come out smooth due to timing of the drop and spin speeds in the test mode and being on a horizontal line between waypoints on the planning mode in Google maps (Not stacked.).

I'd rather have this all automated and not do an quasi-automatic flight mission via Autopilot, and then drop out to Manual joystick control, and then engage Autopilot again once at the correct lower altitude waypoint. Doing that (i.e. Engage, Disengage to drop-and-spin, and Engage again.) while in Movie mode won't be smooth.

 

[FASTFJR]

LOL
I ran into the same issue you did, all the fields i my township are being used