Imposing lines/boundaries in Litchi Mission Hub

[BigAl07]

Long shot here but here goes:

I'm going to be working on a long-term construction project that's a couple of hours drive from my office. I need to pre-plan as much as I can before driving to the job site so I'm tinkering with some flights using Litchi in the Mission Hub (browser based interface not on tablet) but the problem is the map that Litchi is using is slightly out of date and a couple of the buildings that are UP now on the job are not showing on the map. I'd like to "locate" them on the Mission Hub so I can incorporate their position into my flight planning.

Also the very center of my project and the access road around the project are not showing and I need to incorporate them into my planning. I have a detailed picture that I just snapped of the job site so I should be able to approximate where to place the boundaries but is there a way within Litchi to add these for "reference only"?

I'm open to suggestions and of course "alternatives" but I need to be able to preplan and prefly my missions for make this project work long-term. I'll need to make some complex flights here and there so the ability to use waypoints and POI will be a must.

 

[bsartist]

Long shot here but here goes:

I'm going to be working on a long-term construction project that's a couple of hours drive from my office. I need to pre-plan as much as I can before driving to the job site so I'm tinkering with some flights using Litchi in the Mission Hub (browser based interface not on tablet) but the problem is the map that Litchi is using is slightly out of date and a couple of the buildings that are UP now on the job are not showing on the map. I'd like to "locate" them on the Mission Hub so I can incorporate their position into my flight planning.

Also the very center of my project and the access road around the project are not showing and I need to incorporate them into my planning. I have a detailed picture that I just snapped of the job site so I should be able to approximate where to place the boundaries but is there a way within Litchi to add these for "reference only"?

I'm open to suggestions and of course "alternatives" but I need to be able to preplan and prefly my missions for make this project work long-term. I'll need to make some complex flights here and there so the ability to use waypoints and POI will be a must.

If I understand your question... Can’t you use google earth to find the lat/Lon of the object you are interested in and use that to place your litchi waypoint or POI? (Can’t recall if you can specify lat/Lon for POI. But you can for waypoints for sure.

I created a mission to fly around my whole property boundary. I did this by using google maps which showed my property line. I grabbed the coordinates of each property line corner/turn and laid down waypoints at each of those spots.

In your case sounds like you won’t need property lines but if google earth or maps have newer imagery you can nab the lat/Lon’s you need.

I may have misunderstood your problem statement though.

 

[BigAl07]

If I understand your question... Can’t you use google earth to find the lat/Lon of the object you are interested in and use that to place your litchi waypoint or POI? (Can’t recall if you can specify lat/Lon for POI. But you can for waypoints for sure.

I created a mission to fly around my whole property boundary. I did this by using google maps which showed my property line. I grabbed the coordinates of each property line corner/turn and laid down waypoints at each of those spots.

In your case sounds like you won’t need property lines but if google earth or maps have newer imagery you can nab the lat/Lon’s you need.

I may have misunderstood your problem statement though.

First off thank you for replying.

I probably didn't give enough details. This is a "Quick Build" neighborhood and as such buildings are going up very quickly. I need to be able to not only place my POI (which I can indeed do as you suggested) but I also need to layout the access road, foundation of current building, and other key landmarks so I can use them for reference in my planning.

 

[bsartist]

Ok. I’m thinking a little out of the box here. But spitballing can lead to an idea that actually works.

I assume your problem is that you believe what you need are not on ANY maps.

Litchi hub lets you see other published missions by other droners. See if there are any published nearby and if there is a way to contact the droner to see if s/he is willing to help by going to the site and grab coordinates and tracks.

Maybe less of a long shot is someone who works in the job site and is a bit of a geek with a gps or gps app that can get what you need.

One long shot deserves another. LOL. ;-)

 

[BigAl07]

Here's what I'm working with:

Picture of the job site as of yesterday (2 hours away)

Litchi Mission Hub (I need to see roads & buildings to be able to use them for landmarks for my flying ques)

 

[bsartist]

You have current aerial pics of the site? Can you overlay one on top of a screencap of the hub map in, say, photoshop on two different layers and play with opacity and rotating/resizing to register one on top of the other - using common landmarks like the houses. Then as you play with opacity to find landmarks on the hub image that correspond with something you want in your new aerial photo. Then go into hub and mark them.

 

[BigAl07]

You have current aerial pics of the site? Can you overlay one on top of a screencap of the hub map in, say, photoshop on two different layers and play with opacity and rotating/resizing to register one on top of the other - using common landmarks like the houses. Then as you play with opacity to find landmarks on the hub image that correspond with something you want in your new aerial photo. Then go into hub and mark them.

It's like we are sharing a brain tonight or something LOL! That's exactly what I'm doing right now... or attempting to. My brain is fried from working on the biggest contract of my business and I'm trying to get all "technical" with Litchi. I think I'm going to hit SAVE and pick this up again tomorrow.

But what you suggested is EXACTLY what I'm going to do. Good call and thank you.

 

[BigAl07]

I think what I may do is this (shooting from the hip here) it do exactly like you said and getting the CURRENT version turned and rotated to match the existing landmarks on Mission Hub's older image then once it's just right.... print it on OverHead Film and then tape it to my monitor and use it as my template.

 

[Inno]

BigAI07, I've taken all of the Flight School courses from Laurence Seberini an instructor at Udemy.com. Online classes. Most of the classes are specific to Litchi. In your case he suggests you fly the area with Litchi and just set the waypoints of interest along the way, make notes at each stop as what you need to do, save the mission, then upload to mission hub to finalize exactly what you need to do at each waypoint. this way you are not relying on an outdated map. hope this helps.

Safe Flying

 

[BigAl07]

BigAI07, I've taken all of the Flight School courses from Laurence Seberini an instructor at Udemy.com. Online classes. Most of the classes are specific to Litchi. In your case he suggests you fly the area with Litchi and just set the waypoints of interest along the way, make notes at each stop as what you need to do, save the mission, then upload to mission hub to finalize exactly what you need to do at each waypoint. this way you are not relying on an outdated map. hope this helps.

Safe Flying

I'm pretty far into the series myself and I did go and fly the site yesterday and created a mission but I need to "Tweak It" and unfortunately my notes (and there are a lot of them) don't list distances to the road, house next door, new powerlines etc. I have a decent flight loaded for the easy part but some of the videos the director requires is going to require me to know more details than I took. I may hve to bite the bullet and make another trip in person.

Great suggestion on the Phantom Flight School BTW. I've gotten a lot of good information from each one and Laurence Saberini is one of the best and my personal favorite.

 

[bsartist]

It's like we are sharing a brain tonight or something LOL! That's exactly what I'm doing right now... or attempting to. My brain is fried from working on the biggest contract of my business and I'm trying to get all "technical" with Litchi. I think I'm going to hit SAVE and pick this up again tomorrow.

But what you suggested is EXACTLY what I'm going to do. Good call and thank you.

Here is a quick and dirty attempt I did on my iPhone using an app called SuperimposeX and your photos:

 

[BigAl07]

Here is a quick and dirty attempt I did on my iPhone using an app called SuperimposeX and your photos:

That's pretty awesome! Good work and thank you

Over in the Commercial Pilots forum Dave Pittman has shown a way to mark it in Google Earth and then import that resulting file into Litchi.

The options are pretty impressive all the way around.

THANK YOU ALL!

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Good stuff!! Using Google Earth WITH Litchi is a great idea too. I often will import a mission from Litchi into it to double check altitudes and paths around hill and trees. Plotting a mission on non existant objects is a bit of a task. But I think bsartist has a good idea.

 

[BigAl07]

Good stuff!! Using Google Earth WITH Litchi is a great idea too. I often will import a mission from Litchi into it to double check altitudes and paths around hill and trees.

Have you played with Virtual Litchi Mission yet? It takes "looking at the path" up a level to FLYING the mission "virtually" as if you was in the aircraft so you can tweak camera angles etc. Here's a link to the thread if you've not already checked it out:

Virtual Litchi Mission

Plotting a mission on non existant objects is a bit of a task. But I think bsartist has a good idea.

Not only that but I'm required to perform "repeatable" complex shots that involve flying over neighboring buildings & landmarks. The "Picture Taking" is the easy part but creating repeatable videos flying in close proximity to buildings, trees, and being precise is a daunting task. When you factor in using outdated images with missing components it's mind boggling LOL.

@bsartist had a great idea and I'm going to work with it when I get back home later tonight.

I'm also going to test the idea @Dave Pitman has suggested over in Commercial Pilots about using an image overlay on Google Earth, doing my layouts there and then importing that KML file back into Litchi.

Thank you to EVERYONE for your input and suggestions.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Have you played with Virtual Litchi Mission yet? It takes "looking at the path" up a level to FLYING the mission "virtually" as if you was in the aircraft so you can tweak camera angles etc. Here's a link to the thread if you've not already checked it out:

Virtual Litchi Mission



Not only that but I'm required to perform "repeatable" complex shots that involve flying over neighboring buildings & landmarks. The "Picture Taking" is the easy part but creating repeatable videos flying in close proximity to buildings, trees, and being precise is a daunting task. When you factor in using outdated images with missing components it's mind boggling LOL.

@bsartist had a great idea and I'm going to work with it when I get back home later tonight.

I'm also going to test the idea @Dave Pitman has suggested over in Commercial Pilots about using an image overlay on Google Earth, doing my layouts there and then importing that KML file back into Litchi.

Thank you to EVERYONE for your input and suggestions.

Not yet... But I just downloaded it and will have a look this weekend. Thanks for the link!

 

[bsartist]

Not yet... But I just downloaded it and will have a look this weekend. Thanks for the link!

Not to hijack but has anyone gotten VLM to work on Win10 32 bit?

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Not to hijack but has anyone gotten VLM to work on Win10 32 bit?

..... Win 10 works?....... (Runs)....

 

[bsartist]

..... Win 10 works?....... (Runs)....

32 bit?

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

Sorry for the dig. I lost interest at Win 8. I run win 7 64 bit with inpunity. Has everything I need and (Fully controllable) and will not subject myself to Mr. Gates impulses. Once Win 7 64 bit proved to run processes in memory I knew I had to marry it. What more could I ask for? Device drivers: written and provided, control over processes and "call home"... doable. The tipping point was reached in my own needs and that's where I stopped.. Similarly for DJI Go 2.9.1.

 

[GrammatonxXXxCleric]

I WILL look at the Virtual Litchi mission program.... Hope it runs on my antiquated abacus device.