Pano mode in Litchi

[Chrislaf]

I am interested in Litchi as well for use with my P3S. Even before I got my standard I had looked into Litchi a bit. I am mostly interested in it for doing panos and the orbit feature. I have done a few panos manually with my standard and they have turned out ok. I hadn't really looked into it any more because I thought the pano feature would only work with Android devices and I have an iPhone, but it appears it now works on iOS. Convenience wise, Litchi seems like it would be great for me, as it would be great to just set it up and let it take the photos and not have to worry about the overlap.

Couple of questions:
Can Litchi do panos in dng format or does it just use jpeg format? Other than hardware specific features (like tap to focus), will all of the other features work well on my standard? From all the info on here it seems like a good stable software that will add lots of new features to my P3S. I have also been reading the Litchi manual but wanted to find out from seasoned users whether it is worthwhile to purchase for use on the standard.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Chris

 

[Pharm]

I am interested in Litchi as well for use with my P3S. Even before I got my standard I had looked into Litchi a bit. I am mostly interested in it for doing panos and the orbit feature. I have done a few panos manually with my standard and they have turned out ok. I hadn't really looked into it any more because I thought the pano feature would only work with Android devices and I have an iPhone, but it appears it now works on iOS. Convenience wise, Litchi seems like it would be great for me, as it would be great to just set it up and let it take the photos and not have to worry about the overlap.

Couple of questions:
Can Litchi do panos in dng format or does it just use jpeg format? Other than hardware specific features (like tap to focus), will all of the other features work well on my standard? From all the info on here it seems like a good stable software that will add lots of new features to my P3S. I have also been reading the Litchi manual but wanted to find out from seasoned users whether it is worthwhile to purchase for use on the standard.

Thanks in advance for any info.

Chris

Chris, I use Litchi on my P3S almost exclusively. I've never had a single problem with it. It works fine on mine for panos. The most useful feature for me is the waypoint feature. Tell it where to go (and what to do when it gets there), when to go, what to look at and what to do when it's finished. Press "Start Mission" and off she goes. I just set my RC down and wait for her to return from her mission. I often lose connection but it doesn't matter. The mission proceeds as planned and then my sweet little bird comes home.

 

[Chrislaf]

Chris, I use Litchi on my P3S almost exclusively. I've never had a single problem with it. It works fine on mine for panos. The most useful feature for me is the waypoint feature. Tell it where to go (and what to do when it gets there), when to go, what to look at and what to do when it's finished. Press "Start Mission" and off she goes. I just set my RC down and wait for her to return from her mission. I often lose connection but it doesn't matter. The mission proceeds as planned and then my sweet little bird comes home.

Pharm,
Thanks for your reply. The pano mode was what initially attracted me to it but the waypoint feature sounds pretty cool too. When you are doing a waypoint mission, how do you know if you will have enough battery power to complete the mission? Does it auto land after the mission is complete? I think I will probably go ahead and purchase Litchi and will read the manual to find out about all it can do. Am planning a family trip out to the west coast (of Canada) this summer so the waypoint feature will likely come in very handy. Just need to practice more with my P3S and get more confident at sending it further and higher but always within LOS.

Chris

 

[tevek]

Pharm,
Thanks for your reply. The pano mode was what initially attracted me to it but the waypoint feature sounds pretty cool too. When you are doing a waypoint mission, how do you know if you will have enough battery power to complete the mission? Does it auto land after the mission is complete? I think I will probably go ahead and purchase Litchi and will read the manual to find out about all it can do. Am planning a family trip out to the west coast (of Canada) this summer so the waypoint feature will likely come in very handy. Just need to practice more with my P3S and get more confident at sending it further and higher but always within LOS.

Chris

When you plan your mission, at the bottom of the screen will indicate the distance and approximate duration of the trip. This doesn't take into account any variables such as wind that may increase this time. I always take off with 100% battery life and most of my trips are between 10-12 minutes giving me plenty of fat to play with. I always set the mission to RTH and take manual control prior to landing. Auto landing is too harsh and I hand catch.

 

[Chrislaf]

When you plan your mission, at the bottom of the screen will indicate the distance and approximate duration of the trip. This doesn't take into account any variables such as wind that may increase this time. I always take off with 100% battery life and most of my trips are between 10-12 minutes giving me plenty of fat to play with. I always set the mission to RTH and take manual control prior to landing. Auto landing is too harsh and I hand catch.

Thanks, the approximate duration of the mission is reassuring. I would be able to plan my trip accordingly. Going to go ahead and buy Litchi and try it out. This will be exciting with all these cool features.

Just curious. Why is auto landing too harsh? With the Go app I have been auto landing and it comes down nice and gentle. Is the Litchi app not as good at landing compared to the Go app?

Chris

 

[tevek]

Thanks, the approximate duration of the mission is reassuring. I would be able to plan my trip accordingly. Going to go ahead and buy Litchi and try it out. This will be exciting with all these cool features.

Just curious. Why is auto landing too harsh? With the Go app I have been auto landing and it comes down nice and gentle. Is the Litchi app not as good at landing compared to the Go app?

Chris

I don't have too many flat and clean areas to land and the one time I did use it, there was a bit of a breeze and it wanted to flip over. Litchi and the go app operate the same in these functions. You will enjoy the mission mode and probably crap yourself the first time it disconnects. It will continue regardless if you have it set correctly, don't forget to factor in your RTH height.

 

[Chrislaf]

I don't have too many flat and clean areas to land and the one time I did use it, there was a bit of a breeze and it wanted to flip over. Litchi and the go app operate the same in these functions. You will enjoy the mission mode and probably crap yourself the first time it disconnects. It will continue regardless if you have it set correctly, don't forget to factor in your RTH height.

Thanks for the tip about RTH. Yes the disconnect would worry me! I would wonder if the AC would come back. I'll just have to practice a mission in a wide open space to see how it behaves and what it can do. The idea of being able to program it to fly to a different waypoints and have it do a number of things like take a panorama or record a video is exciting just to think about. Tons of potential for photography and videography.

Thanks Tevek and Pharm for your helpful and encouraging comments. I went ahead and purchased Litchi. Now I just have to wait for the weather to clear - cold and thunderstorms is not good flying weather.

 

[bsartist]

While the mission will keep running after a disconnect, the AC will still initiate RTH on low battery condition if you have litchi set for that. That doesn't mean you should plan missions that last 23 minutes. but it's a failsafe.

Again, it doesn't account for wind when deciding to RTH.

 

[Chrislaf]

While the mission will keep running after a disconnect, the AC will still initiate RTH on low battery condition if you have litchi set for that. That doesn't mean you should plan missions that last 23 minutes. but it's a failsafe.

Again, it doesn't account for wind when deciding to RTH.

Thanks for the tip. I'll make sure I have Litchi set up properly before I try a mission. Haven't been able to get out and fly due to rainy/windy weather.

 

[taurus35]

Thanks for the tip. I'll make sure I have Litchi set up properly before I try a mission. Haven't been able to get out and fly due to rainy/windy weather.

The best thing about Litchi is being able to pre-plan your missions (when the weathers bad ) using the Mission Hub & the just upload them to your Phantom & watch it go

 

[Chrislaf]

Well, I tried out Litchi for the first time today and it seemed to work great. I tried my first autonomous pano and was amazed how it just hovered in the sky, moved the camera into position and took a shot, then rotated and continued until finished. There were a few wind gusts and the phantom definitely moved out of position a few times so I don't know how the pano will turn out (haven't processed it yet), but I tried a 2 row 180 degree pano and a 2 row 360 degree pano. I find it amazing what these devices can do combined with great software like Litchi.

Also tried course lock and it worked great as well. Much easier to use than the GO app. Even with the wind gusts the phantom hovered pretty steady and I was able to easily hand catch it - something I have never done before. This will definitely come in handy when I am landing on a beach or uneven terrain.

Can't wait to try out the other autonomous features like the waypoint missions.

Chris