Litchi Altitude Settings

Allen Whitehead · Dec 17, 2016

I live in Northern Utah, and am surround by mountains. I wanted to confirm that when creating a mission via Mission Hub (Litchi), that the altitude I set for a given waypoint is calculated based upon the ground at that particular point. In other words if I'm flying near a mountain and Waypoint 1 has a ground altitude of 4500' and I set that Waypoint to 200', then the Phantom 4 will fly 4700' above sea level (or 200' above ground at that point). If then Waypoint 2 has a ground altitude of 4800' and I set that altitude in Mission Hub at 200', then the drone will fly at 5000' above sea level (or 200' above ground at that point).

Does anyone know if this is how Litchi does its calculation?

Thank you,
Allen

tcope · Dec 17, 2016

It's set based off the home point (take off altitude). It does not change based on surrounding terrain. You would need to manually change the altitude at each waypoint.

ftttu · Dec 17, 2016

Yep, it is all relative to you takeoff point. I'm sure most others do it too, but I click a POI onto where I want to put a WP to see how far or below my takeoff point is. I then delete the POI and set my WP's height accordingly.

AlecW · Dec 17, 2016

My house in Denver is at 5400 feet and litchi works fine. A 200ft AGL waypoint is 5600 feet above sea level, otherwise my drone would have crashed

reddyvv · Dec 18, 2016

When you create a waypoint in the Litchi website it gives you the +- altitude of the waypoint relative to the first waypoint. You can then set the flight height accordingly.

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jogforfitness · Dec 18, 2016

This was posted Tuesday December 13 on FB by Litchi Beta iOS:
Coming Soon!

Good news! Litchi is going to allow us to set altitude relative to ground. This will allow us to create missions with a specified altitude above ground and will manage changes in elevation and adjust altitude automatically when flying missions. This feature will be based on ground elevation data from Google Earth which is not 100% accurate, but this should make our lives a bit easier. Currently it's on Android beta and will be coming soon to iOS beta. I will post more info as I receive it.

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AlecW · Dec 18, 2016

jogforfitness said:
This was posted Tuesday December 13 on FB by Litchi Beta iOS:
Coming Soon!

Good news! Litchi is going to allow us to set altitude relative to ground. This will allow us to create missions with a specified altitude above ground and will manage changes in elevation and adjust altitude automatically when flying missions. This feature will be based on ground elevation data from Google Earth which is not 100% accurate, but this should make our lives a bit easier. Currently it's on Android beta and will be coming soon to iOS beta. I will post more info as I receive it.

Sent from my iPad using PhantomPilots

My house like I said is 5,400'. I have a friend who lives about 6 miles (as a crow flies away) and he's at just under 9,000'. I'll never do this for numerous reasons but in theory I could use Litchi to fly from his yard and land in mine. We have quite the sophisticated machine in our hands

dwallersv · Feb 6, 2017

jogforfitness said:
This was posted Tuesday December 13 on FB by Litchi Beta iOS:
Coming Soon!

Good news! Litchi is going to allow us to set altitude relative to ground. This will allow us to create missions with a specified altitude above ground and will manage changes in elevation and adjust altitude automatically when flying missions. This feature will be based on ground elevation data from Google Earth which is not 100% accurate, but this should make our lives a bit easier. Currently it's on Android beta and will be coming soon to iOS beta. I will post more info as I receive it.

Anything else on this? I just updated to the beta, but can't find anything in the app to enable/disable this. A set of waypoints came out the same as usual -- all 98ft above the takeoff altitude.

I'll poke around the site and see if I can find anything... I'd really like this to work, as creating missions in the field will be much much easier.

tevek · Feb 6, 2017

dwallersv said:
Anything else on this? I just updated to the beta, but can't find anything in the app to enable/disable this. A set of waypoints came out the same as usual -- all 98ft above the takeoff altitude.

I'll poke around the site and see if I can find anything... I'd really like this to work, as creating missions in the field will be be much much easier.

It's just been released in the new update for iOS 1.15.1. Assuming it's the same in the beta version for android(?), if you tap the wrench/spanner icon, it is the new function at the bottom. You can batch all your WPs for height, speed etc, set the relative to ground function in edit, and try it out. @smiller on another thread yesterday posted up a step by step guide. Flew it yesterday and it works fine and the Google relative heights at each way point are roughly in line with my knowledge of the area.

Brockrock · Feb 6, 2017

AlecW said:
My house like I said is 5,400'. I have a friend who lives about 6 miles (as a crow flies away) and he's at just under 9,000'. I'll never do this for numerous reasons but in theory I could use Litchi to fly from his yard and land in mine. We have quite the sophisticated machine in our hands

Check out this if you have not seen it.

dwallersv · Feb 6, 2017

tevek said:
It's just been released in the new update for iOS 1.15.1. Assuming it's the same in the beta version for android(?), if you tap the wrench/spanner icon, it is the new function at the bottom. You can batch all your WPs for height, speed etc, set the relative to ground function in edit, and try it out. @smiller on another thread yesterday posted up a step by step guide. Flew it yesterday and it works fine and the Google relative heights at each way point are roughly in line with my knowledge of the area.

Sweet, thanks! That was it.

I assumed the batch dialog after creating several WPs at once with the drawing tool would have this setting, but it doesn't -- that's why I couldn't "find" it. I never tried placing discrete WPs and then batch-changing properties.

So, this looks like a usability improvement that was overlooked... The same options that appear when batch editing WPs should also show in the batch dialog for creating WPs with the path drawing tool.

reddyvv · Feb 6, 2017

Just be careful when setting waypoints that you have one at each of the high points on the mission. If you choose two waypoints with a steep rise between them you'll still fly into it even if the waypoints are adjusted for ground elevation!

I think that's one of the advantages of using Google Earth. Hopefully the feature will be built into Litchi at some point.

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dwallersv · Feb 6, 2017

Something I never paid any attention to, as altitude changes are pretty rare in the missions I've done... does Litchi fly the AC on a smooth ascent/descent interpolating the slope between the two waypoints, or does it head for the target altitude at full throttle and then level off when it gets there, continuing to the waypoint?

tevek · Feb 6, 2017

dwallersv said:
Sweet, thanks! That was it.

I assumed the batch dialog after creating several WPs at once with the drawing tool would have this setting, but it doesn't -- that's why I couldn't "find" it. I never tried placing discrete WPs and then batch-changing properties.

So, this looks like a usability improvement that was overlooked... The same options that appear when batch editing WPs should also show in the batch dialog for creating WPs with the path drawing tool.

Just tried the drawing tool and it works the same as the manual plotting of each waypoint. You batch edit the waypoints, then go back into the spanner icon and select the new 'square' icon and you can toggle between home, current or ground.

reddyvv · Feb 6, 2017

I've never made any extreme altitude changes but I assume the climb angle should be a straight line between the two waypoints? Anyone?

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tevek · Feb 6, 2017

dwallersv said:
Something I never paid any attention to, as altitude changes are pretty rare in the missions I've done... does Litchi fly the AC on a smooth ascent/descent interpolating the slope between the two waypoints, or does it head for the target altitude at full throttle and then level off when it gets there, continuing to the waypoint?

It will fly at whatever speed you select for each waypoint or if you batch speed the mission it will be that speed. That's my experience, not considering wind factors.

reddyvv · Feb 6, 2017

Tevek,

I wonder what "current" means. Current height of drone? How does one use that feature in practice?

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tevek · Feb 6, 2017

reddyvv said:
Tevek,

I wonder what "current" means. Current height of drone? How does one use that feature in practice?

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I have no idea without digging out the manual, but I toggled between ground, current and home and i got some pretty wild numbers on my normal mission.

reddyvv · Feb 6, 2017

Tevek,

The previous question from dwallersv was about the climb rate not speed. Any observation on that?

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dwallersv · Feb 6, 2017

tevek said:
Just tried the drawing tool and it works the same as the manual plotting of each waypoint. You batch edit the waypoints, then go back into the spanner icon and select the new 'square' icon and you can toggle between home, current or ground.

Not on Android.

Draw a path, Litchi creates a set of waypoints and displays the batch dialog. The altitude slider is there, but not the reference dropdown. It IS there when you go back and select the points again then edit them with the edit button.