A desktop flight planning tool would be great, it is very useful when estimating time and costs for upcoming jobs.
I would be happy to address this. Our team can see value in a majority if not all the feature requests that we receive from our users. Our development team has to evaluate these requests and determine how long it would take to create such a feature, how many resources will need to be dedicated to this task, and also if it is in line with what we have already planned to develop in our roadmap. We also analyze how many users are asking for a specific feature to be implemented. These are the main factors that our team evaluates as we review product feedback and user-submitted requests.
As my colleague Rhea has suggested earlier in this discussion, the decision to implement a feature does not depend solely on us but on many external factors that make the planning and release process complex. Also there is always a trade-off between integrating new drones, implementing new features (flight, settings, mission management…), improving the current interface, and solving bugs.
I agree, a desktop flight planning tool would be very helpful in the pre-planning part of a project where you evaluate associated costs. I have forwarded your request to our development team.
@Joshua thank you for replying to that. I do certainly know and understand that when it comes to software, what seems like and easy update/fix to the software users may in fact be just the opposite when it comes to actually programming and implementing those updates and new features. I love Pix4D and this one issue is a little frustrating but until such time comes that it exist I will work around it :) I won’t voice any more frustration with it as it won’t change anything and hopefully their will be a sufficient number of request to warrant the change. If not life will go on. But I will continue to be a 99% happy customer 
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Glad to hear the functionality has at least been submitted. Desktop planning really is needed in business-class drone control software. Otherwise no matter how advanced it’s really just a hobbyist platform.
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Very glad to hear that you enjoy using the software in your everyday workflow. Keep letting our team know how we can improve the software, we really appreciate this fundamental feedback.
I agree, the ability to plan Pix4Dcapture missions on your desktop would be an extremely useful tool. Make sure to follow this post so you get email notifications when new comments are made. We will post on this thread if we have an update on this requested feature.
Desktop mission planning is coming for gently curved, convergent, non-traditional
flight paths - with both .kml and .shp file export. Stay tuned.
Check out “Gently Curved, Convergent, Non-traditional Drone Flight Paths” at Amazon eBooks.
@James Dow
I purchased the ebook on Amazon. Needless to say I am not an engineer so some of the material was outside my scope of comprehension. But I do have a few questions.
- Are you guys making a plugin for Litchi to create and fly the missions?
- Will Pix4D still process the collected imagery using your Litchi flight plan just the same?
- Do you guys have or plan to make a youtube video that demonstrates and discusses all the principals in the ebook on a non-engineering level?
I look forward to learning more.
Tim: I’ll answer your questions in the order asked.
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Yes. However, we’ll probably focus on piloted missions first. That seems to be the fastest path to success. Certain drone limitations (controllers and planning software) need to be overcome. We will rely on folks like you to motivate the drone makers to advance to curved flight paths.
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Absolutely! Pix4D is a big part of our plan.
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Yes. Curved flight paths are quite flexible and easy to implement - especially if the drone makers decide to support import of .kml and/or .shp files. That’s where folks like you can make a difference too.
Thanks for your questions and interest.
Jim Doow
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I too vote in a big way for flight planning on a PC. Currently using drone deploy to price and plan big area flights
Wow, 2+ years on following up on this request. I fly approximately 15 times per week and have had to resort to Drone Harmony due to the Pix4D’s lag in odd shape mapping and desktop flight planning. The main difference imo is that capture is free, drone harmony is not, therefore customer requests are taken seriously and not with what appears to be a grain of salt.
Casting a vote for desktop flight planning. Especially consider allowing for terrain response flights (importing shapefiles with z vlaues, etc.). We do a lot of flights in areas with drastically and quick changing terrain and would love to be able to automate a flight to stay at a constant AGL by creating a pre-planned flight path with a previously derived DEM.
Hi all,
As an update, it is our long-time goal to have a desktop flight planning application and then we are evaluating the DJI windows SDK. The approach of our applications in the future is to have more interoperability between platforms to simplify/improve the user’s experience, especially for business owners. A special attention is given by our teams for this at the moment.
However, we can not give any timeline about this but be sure that all your comments are read and taken into account for the improvement of our application and we encourage them. We will keep you updated as often as necessary in the implementation of features.
Thank you for your understanding,
Best,
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It is quite a disappointment to watch a thread going on for 2+ years and nothing coming out of it.
The continuous - repetitive answer about the processes not being in the pipeline gives the impression that paying customers comments are not so valuable in planning PIX4D’s new products.
Planning IS AN ESSENTIAL PART of drone operations and I think that no-one can disagree.Debating about the importance of interacting with a updating map background service as google or offline desktop flight planning is I think a mute point.
The insistence of the company NOT TO ADDRESS the issue of it’s customers while other applications do JUST THAT (and for free) leaves me baffled.
After all I believe that anyone using drone in a professional capacity wouldn’t blink an eyelid to pay a reasonable amount of money for these services since they are so much needed.
You will excuse me when I tell you that I have no understanding what-so-ever
I think it’s becoming pretty clear that Pix4d is squarely aiming their software at the casual and amateur market instead of as a low-cost and easy-to-use alternative for business/professional users.
Hi Andrew and Sarantopoulos.d,
We totally understand your concerns here and as I wrote in my previous comment, the teams are especially focused at the moment to work on a new approach of the software. In the future, the application will enable more interoperability between platforms and having a desktop flight planning app is part of the project.
I can then reassure you that it is currently in our pipeline to have those features implemented and to facilitate the user flight planning experience especially when they are made for business purposes.
Every single feedback is taken into account in our process to improve our app.
About the map background services, it is possible using both iOS and Android version of Pix4Dcapture to set a custom basemap provider like google map.
To change, the street or/and satellite basemap provider. In Pix4Dcapture, go to Settings > Map.
To set a custom map provider like Google Maps, I would suggest you read this post and this comment which describe how to proceed.
Also, a .kml/.kmz file can be imported on the Android version of Pix4Dcapture. The procedure can be found on our Knowledge Base at the following link.
Best,
+1 for this update
+1 for this update, very much needed.
Has there been any development on this yet? A desktop mission planning feature would be so much easier.
I think I can say with great confidence that it has not. And it most likely never will happen. Not bashing, just being honest.
I can say with certainty that a desktop mission planning software for drones and piloted aircraft is on the way; but it’s not ready for prime time yet. The mission planning software I am speaking of will deliver curved flight line mission plans - as seen in the image attached. The curved flight line mission plan has been proved to be acceptable and flyable with piloted aircraft as well as fixed-wing drones, hence the turnout loops. For quadcopters, the turnout loops are not being output. The flight test(s) images were processed using Agisoft SfM software with good results - no evidence of the systematic Structure-from-Motion doming error. I am continuing to test and develop this software with commitment. Two universities (Aerospace and Civil Engineering Departments) have committed to testing the curved flight lines over the next year. One university in the US and one in Australia. That’s a good sign.