I noticed the closed article Mapping with DJI Mavic 3, river project as I was considering writing this one. The Mavic 3 was released quite purposefully without an SDK so that DJI could sell their enterprise level Mavic 3 drones later on. I love my Mavic 3 (except for battery issues - another topic for another day), but there are no flight control application available due to the lack of SDK. That leaves us flying the drone in manual mode.
There are some great flights calculators out there that will tell you shutter frequency and aircraft speed for a given overlap, and altitude. the next trick is to figure out how to get the drone to do that in a reliable way to capture good data. Better yet would be to make it repeatable.
DJI has made available waypoint flights that make the bird fly a repeatable route at a set speed but it is meant for video work. It does not support setting a shutter frequency and taking repeated exposures. I wish it did because that would be perfect.
I can tell the drone to take an exposure at a set frequency and fly manually. Controlling speed and route then becomes my responsibility as the hands on the sticks pilot.
Has anyone found a way, a combination of features, that allows them to optimize their flights for map data collection?
Some apps claim to work with the Air 2S but I have found that they do not work. Does anyone use an Air 2S to fly these missions in an automated way?
hi Brett,
I do mapping and orthos using a Mavic 2 Pro and an Air 2S.
Both work with Litchi. I use the iOS version (iPad Air 2 connected to the controller)
There are some other apps that are available for both of my drones, but I like Litchi.
I wanted a Mavic 3, but the lack of DJI support (SDK) stopped me.
The link to the conversion is at Litchi Waypoint Mission to DJI Fly Waypoint Mission. It is worth reading the limitations, but I think it can work. As all I have ever worked with is non-enterprise DJI drones (M3 and Air 2S), I do not have any experience with Litchi. I will have to familiarize myself with Litchi first.
Since you have an Air 2S working with Litchi, this is definitely worth my looking into. I have DJI RC Pro for my Air 2S, I will have to look at using Litchi directly with that. Do you happen to know if it works, or if I have to use an RC that works with a phone?
I do not know about using the RC Pro with Litchi. I use the RC-N1 and an iPad.
After a quick search on the Litchi forum. there are users that fly an Air 2S/RC Pro combination.