Since we first released Map Pilot in 2015 we have made every attempt to support all DJI aircraft with applicable cameras. To do this, we had to wait until DJI released Mobile SDK support for each aircraft so we could talk to it.
Up until a few years ago (2021) iOS and Android were supported by the SDK to provide 3rd party app support to users. DJI stopped adding iOS SDK support to for new aircraft after the release of the Mini 2 Series, Air 2 Series and Mavic 2 Series. A couple of years later after the release of the Mini 3 series, much to the disappointment of everyone, they ceased to offer SDK support for anything other than their Enterprise line of aircraft.
This means that for all aircraft released after the Mavic 2 Series, Mini 3 Series and Air 2 Series that are not Enterprise aircraft are not able to use 3rd party apps for flight control. Due to an overwhelming number of requests to do something to support these aircraft we have found a way to try to help bridge the gap for users of the following aircraft:
- Mavic 3 Pro
- Mavic 3 Classic
- Air 3
- Mini 4 Pro
The process for supporting these aircraft is not as smooth as we would like it to be but it is what it is unless DJI releases SDK support for some or all of these aircraft in the future.
Use Notes
- Maximum Waypoints: 200
- Dummy Mission Required - All operating systems require the manual creation and saving of at least one waypoint mission. This makes sure all of the required folders are present. It will get overwritten by importing the KMZ.
- Where waypoints are not planned the DJI app may add large curves to the flight plan to smooth the flight turns.
- iOS is easiest - select the DJI Fly app folder - Keeps existing missions in the app.
- Pre Android 11 - Select the DJI Fly app folder and select the wayline_mission folder in Map Pilot Pro to overwrite the most recently modified mission.
- Android 11+ doesn't allow access to the /Android/data folder on the device so you can't select the files from Map Pilot Pro. You can save the exported KMZ to the downloads folder and move things around using a 3rd party file manager but that isn't something we can provide support for. Users have reported success with the FV File Explorer + Shizuku combo.
RC2 remotes with iOS - enable the 'Simple KMZ Export' in the Advanced section of the Settings to make it so you can choose where to save the KMZ.
iOS
iOS Export to DJI RC2 Remote
Pre Android 11
Android 11+
The current workflow is to select one of these 'Export Only' aircraft in the Map Pilot Pro Settings and design your flight as you normally would for any fully supported aircraft. The difference comes when you go to upload the waypoints to the aircraft. Instead of actually talking to the aircraft directly Map Pilot Pro will export a KMZ file of the waypoints and actions that are capable of being run using the DJI Fly app.
Dude, sick! I've been a bit annoyed that my M3P has been pretty much useless for mapping tasks, but certainly not enough to pay up for an M3E. Thanks for your efforts to breathe a little more life into these machines.
This information from DJI cannot come soon enough. Essentially those of us who decided to purchase consumer drones are being left in the dark when it comes to third-party application support. This is really not acceptable from a company like DJI. DJI, you are so amazing with customer support after purchase, why is it so difficult to get a mini pro four SDK released? Surely, someone at DJ knows how the internals work. What is the holdup?
Tried out the new export functionality on an Android 13 device. The list of export-only devices is at the bottom of the camera list in the settings.
Some of the photos came out blurry; without MPP controlling speed to keep GSD under control, you're relying on the waypoint system to stop the drone and take the picture at the right time, something DJI has not been good at in my experience.
Getting the file into DJI Fly's storage without root is rather a pain. I was able to do it using `adb shell` and using the mv command to overwrite the file. If anyone else tries this, it's in Android/data/dji.go.v5/files/waypoint/some-letters-and-numbers/letters-and-numbers.kml. You'll need a computer and USB cable (and Google skills if you don't know how to use adb).
You can also likely do this with root access on your device and a file manager app that can make use of it.
Still rough around the edges but functional enough for a first release.
(You can ignore the links; they're not meant to be there 😕)
James: Thank you for the feedback. Since Map Pilot Pro is not there to manage some of the camera settings it will be important to set them on your own. We recommend Auto everything.
The waypoint system on the aircraft shouldn't actually be stopping at the waypoints. Is that what you are seeing?
It should be flying at the speeds noted in Map Pilot Pro and taking the images while flying the path like MPP.
If the blurred images are just due to lack of light (something that Map Pilot Pro actively adjusts the speed for) you might need to turn down the maximum speed of your flight. That is just something we can't do much about since we aren't seeing the live exposure numbers.
Please feel free to send us your KMZ file so we can take a look at it.
We have found that some of the other file managers work on the device so you don't have to involve a computer. https://www.airdroid.com/file-transfer/access-android-data-folder-without-root/
I was able to add a kml file to the flight plan on the Parrot Anafi drone I used before. It was a very practical feature. I was previously saving the kml file prepared on the computer to my mobile phone and adding it to the flight plan. Do you have such a feature in your application?
Thanks Zane, I tried the FV File Explorer + Shizuku combo from that site and after some setup, it seems to be working well.
Ran a second mission with no blurry images to speak of. I was a lot closer to the area being mapped this time, so I was able to observe the drone more closely, and it flew continuously just like it does with MME. No huge slowdowns like last time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Also, do we need a ground reference image with this workflow? I forgot to take one, but the images went through the DJI workflow with no complaints.
Also, I did some tests and was able to successfuly load an exported mission onto my DJI RC using the microSD card and the Files app. The mission's 393 waypoints did not sit well with the low end specs of the device, and it crashed as soon as I tried to expand the map, but a more reasonable mission would likely actually work.
When using export mode, an extra field in the statistics panel showing waypoint count and max would be nice ("Waypoints: 207/400").
Also, the max in 2.1.1e seems to be 400, not 200 as described in the article above. Also also, unless that number is hardcoded into the Fly app or drone firmware, consider letting us change it, or just present a warning if past a certain threshold. For the RC, I might want to keep it to 150 per file, while my flagship phone can handle the 393 waypoint mission just fine. For processing really large areas, automatically splitting the export into multiple files would be nice.
If you plan on processing your data with Maps Made Easy we recommend manually taking a ground image. That isn't something we could have it do in the KMZ file.
The DJI RC is REALLY slow at loading the waypoints. We will look into the maximum waypoints issue and will consider adding a max export waypoint setting that could break it up into multiple flights.
Using the RC-N2 and an iPad, this is a relatively easy workflow. Great work around. The resulting waypoint mission looks good but I think deleting the first and last points (takeoff and landing location) will result in the drone flying directly to and from the mission grid rather than flying a curve. I'm not sure the quoted GSD for the Mini 4 Pro when setting the altitude, is correct. Double that of the Mini 2? Unless the camera data I have is wrong. I've yet to test fly the new waypoint missions, but if this works out ok I will be able to retire my Mini 2 and use my obstacle avoidance drones!! Thanks for all the hard work guys.
Is there a way to transfer the waypoint KMZ files from the RC-N2 Fly App to an RCN2 (with screen). That would be so useful.
Dean: What curve are you talking about? The approach and return legs should be terrain adjusted if you are using that option. In normal Map Pilot Pro operation the aircraft ascends from the take off location to a point directly over it and then goes to green dot in a straight line. Is this not what you are seeing? Please email us your KMZ if not.
We will check on the GSD for the Mini 4. Keep in mind that we are only intending to show the GSD for the 12 megapixel dimensions of the sensor. It is possible it is currently showing the 48 megapixel numbers. We will adjust that if that is the case.
We have found that plugging it into a computer is the most universal way to move stuff around. You could try the 3rd party file manager options listed above.
Email sent with KMZ example file. With the 'export' mission the drone does not fly in a straight line to the first mission grid point (as the Map Pilot app does). It can fly a nice curve as the DJI Fly app would do to smooth the flight for videoing purposes. Without the first and last points in the 'export' mission, the Fly app will control the drone to/from start/end of the waypoint mission grid. Just my two cents worth.
Map Pilot Pro does not program any curved lines. Is it possible that when editing the mission and resaving it DJI is moving the points around? We are not seeing the curves in the file you sent. Can you post a screenshot that shows it?
We have our exported missions control the approach and return paths because when Terrain Awareness is enabled those segments get Terrain Awareness adjustments too. If you don't want those legs to be controls you could manually delete the waypoints in the DJI app.
The GSD issue for the Mini 4 has been fixed for the next release.
Hello,
I have an Air3 with the RCN2 (with screen). Prior to finding out Map Pilot Pro had an export option for the Air3, i did a lot of research (after purchasing the air3, wish i would have went enterprise) and the only thing i could find for mission planning for the Air 3 was waypointmap.com - as with this, you had to create a dummy waypoint mission, download the kmz created by waypointmap and overwrite the file on the controller. I like Map Pilot Pros interface much more than waypointmap (which isn't the most user friendly and hard to make corrections), but since i can only mission plan with MPP on the app, and i have an iphone - i can't get the kmz to export from MPP to the DJI directory on the phone. I have DJI fly installed on my iphone but when i go in i don't have the waypoint option to create a dummy (only take off option), I know the path on android (because the controller) is This PC\DJI RC 2\Internal shared storage\Android\data\dji.go.v5\files\waypoint. But i can't fitgure out what the directory structure should be for DJY FLY on IOS. I tried copying over my existing waypoints from the controller to my iphone, but MPP export still fails - so the folder naming or directory structure must be different between the two (or missing files). Do you know what the directory structure should look like for waypoints in DJI FLY on IOS? I'd like to mirror it and copy files from my controler over as 'dummys'. This would be so much easier if MPP had mission planning available in web browser so i could just plan on my computer, export and download directly to the waypoint folder on my controller. Please Help!! I'd appreciate any pointers. Thank you in Advance. I'm hoping i there's another work around option besides buying an android tablet just to do mission planning on.
Kevin: We are aware of the case for users like you that can't run Map Pilot Pro on your remote but only have iOS devices which do all the copying around for you. We will have a version out soon that allows you to export the KMZ to the downloads folder so you can get to it.
In the short term you could browse the the DJI Fly folder on the iOS device and dig the generated KMZ file out of there to move to the remote. You should just be able to select the 'DJI Fly' app folder and look in the 'wayline_mission' folder to find the KMZ.
Zane,
Thank you for the quick response.
On my iphone i created a folder called wayline_mission as you suggested. So the path on the iphone is DJI Fly/wayline_mission.
I copied one of my existing kmz files from a past waypoint missions to DJI Fly/wayline_mission and tried to export from Map Pilot Pro again with no success.
Just to make sure i understand correctly...
on android phones i would export the kmz from Map Pilot Pro to:
DJI RC 2\Internal shared storage\Android\data\dji.go.v5\files\waypoint\{waypoint_folder}\
And it should replace the existing kmz, overwriting the dummy mission that was created on the controler.
On an iphone i would create a folder called wayline_mission in DJI Fly folder and export the kmz from Map Pilot Pro to:
DJI Fly/wayline_mission
And it should replace the existing kmz or create a new one?
On my controller the dummy waypoint mission i planned created a folder within waypoint folder called F4925B45-53F6-4220-9286-F90298B773CA and within that folder is a kmz with filename F4925B45-53F6-4220-9286-F90298B773CA.kmz
I tried mirroring this on my iphone, exporting the following the following locations:
DJI Fly
DJI Fly/wayline_mission
DJI Fly/wayline_mission/F4925B45-53F6-4220-9286-F90298B773CA
All 3 attempts still failed to export.
Is the path still wrong?
I'm glad to hear you'll have a version out soon that allows IOS devices to export to the downloads folder, do you know when that release will be? Is there still an option that works for IOS in the short term?
Thanks.
Kevin: please start a new support thread for this. These are comments for the article and is not the appropriate place for support issues. Everyone above you in the thread is getting all of these emails and that isn't something they are likely interested in.
What's the new support thread?
We have updated all of the videos in the KMZ Export article to show the full process for iOS, iOS to RC2 Remote, Android 10-, and Android 11+.
https://support.dronesmadeeasy.com/hc/en-us/articles/28352693521812-Export-Mission-Plan-as-KMZ-for-use-with-DJI-Fly