I have spent some money and a great deal of time trying to persuade the mighty Inspire to perform this task. The idea is to take the advantage of Zenmuse X5 ability to shoot pictures with longer lens - say, 25 mm - and stitch high resolution spherical image in result. This approach requires 6 rows of 12 pictures each, plus 4 nadirs and 4 additional zenith images. No way to do it manually with one flight battery ...

Well, I must report that my experiments with few presumably capable applications aren't too impressive by far ...

Venerable Litchi app simply can't do the job with Inspire 1 because the bird is drifting significantly during sequence shooting. GPS is holding the position for particular row shooting with rotating gimbal, then the drone drifts with the wind like in ATTI, then stops to shoot next row etc. For 12x6 sequence she can drift in steps good 50 meters in mild wind, delivering impossible to stitch pictures. Accordingly to Litchi tech sup this is known issue with Inspire 1 and Phantom 3 series due to some FW bug. Hmm ...

Autopilot is offering truly impressive set of features for pano, but the execution is awkward with step learning curve. One must figure out and determine way too many exotic parameters, both in general app settings and in Panorama mode settings before engaging pano shooting job, and gimbal behavioral settings are hard to understand. It's promising, but way to complicated.

DronePan app (free) seemed to be the simpliest and sufficient enough. You fly to a desired place, set the position and picture parameters in Go app, switch to DronePan and execute pre-programed sequence. Done. Well, unless the app is displaying the warning "can't determine gimbal attitude" ... ? ... End of story. Apparently 3-axis Inspire gimbal is the troublemaker, an feature too confusing to all pano-capable applications.

DJI Go 4 app is offering nicely crafted Pano mode for Phantom 4 Pro. Single spherical sequence contains 34 images neatly stored in folder on SD card, one battery allow for shooting 4-5 alternative sequences of JPEG+RAW images. The quality of over 300MP stitched full sphere image is astonishing, when done in Autopano Giga or PTGui software. Said that, it's not what I'm after ...

It's is unlikely that DJI will implement Pano Mode for Inspire 1 within Go app, which appears to be obsolete and neglected. Meantime I'll try to master what Autopilot has to offer in this department and post my conclusions here ...

EDIT (Aug 14/2018): Loudly advertised on YT and very promising HDRpano app finally appeared in Apple store ... Sadly this application is only half-cooked and simply doesn't work reliably enough, at least with my Inspire 1 Pro and Matrice 200 drones ...

EDIT #2 (Sep 10/2018): All of the above doesn't apply to Inspire 2. Once I've purchased this bird, even the most elaborate full sphere panoramic shootings are performed nicely with yawing gimbal under Litchi 2.5.1 control. Mission acomplished, finally.

Hi Matt, I don't have much input to offer, but am saddened to hear your report. My plan was to use Autopilot for panos, but I am seeing the steep learning curve after casually checking out the app. It is a pity that DJI does not offer this feature in their stock app.

rent Posted at 2018-4-18 12:13
Hi Matt, I don't have much input to offer, but am saddened to hear your report. My plan was to use Autopilot for panos, but I am seeing the steep learning curve after casually checking out the app. It is a pity that DJI does not offer this feature in their stock app.

Indeed, chances are very slim that DJI will add pano mode to Go app features, which seems pretty much abandoned. Perhaps too many variables with Inspire specific gimbal properties are the reason for all these troubles.  I'm not even sure if Inspire 2 owners can employ this mode in Go 4 app? Autopilot video tutorials are about 2 years old and not up to numerous changes they implemented since, their tech sup is not too swift in responses ... I didn't gave up yet experimenting with various gimbal settings, but I'm about to ...

Matthew Dobrski Posted at 2018-4-18 15:34
Indeed, chances are very slim that DJI will add pano mode to Go app features, which seems pretty much abandoned. Perhaps too many variables with Inspire specific gimbal properties are the reason for all these troubles.  I'm not even sure if Inspire 2 owners can employ this mode in Go 4 app? Autopilot video tutorials are about 2 years old and not up to numerous changes they implemented since, their tech sup is not too swift in responses ... I didn't gave up yet experimenting with various gimbal settings, but I'm about to ...

All I've done so far is throw raw files into LR and use it's pano feature.  Microsoft's Image Composite Editor does nice work too.  I get better panos when using the 25mm or longer lenses.

mikereidphotography Posted at 2018-8-14 17:18
All I've done so far is throw raw files into LR and use it's pano feature.  Microsoft's Image Composite Editor does nice work too.  I get better panos when using the 25mm or longer lenses.

That's nice picture! Anyway, I'm talking about much more complex incarnation of panoramic imagery, called 360x180 or spherical panorama. This approach calls for enormous amount of pictures taken in sequence and precisely spaced, By far only DJI Go 4 app for Phantom 4 Pro is offering reliably performing pano shooting mode in few incarnations, including full sphere. Well, bottom part of full 360 sphere, to be precise. Unfortunately no application is able to take the advantage of rotating Inspire's gimbal, which will greatly improve the efficiency of high resolution panoramic shooting.

hey Guys .. I do it all the time.. with Litchi and using the Gimbal panning.. you just dont do the fast pano.. do the one where you specify and do the pano column by column.. (top to bottom and move). the drone stays put.. no drifting. Hope it helps

Shy Singh Posted at 12-22 13:35
hey Guys .. I do it all the time.. with Litchi and using the Gimbal panning.. you just dont do the fast pano.. do the one where you specify and do the pano column by column.. (top to bottom and move). the drone stays put.. no drifting. Hope it helps

Yes, now it is possible after several updates to Litchi app. By the time of this posting Inspire 2 gimbal wasn't behaving properly. inspire 1 gimbal still doesn't anyway.

Shy Singh Posted at 2018-12-22 13:35
hey Guys .. I do it all the time.. with Litchi and using the Gimbal panning.. you just dont do the fast pano.. do the one where you specify and do the pano column by column.. (top to bottom and move). the drone stays put.. no drifting. Hope it helps

What drone are you using? Phantom or Inspire 1 or Inspire 2 . . .

I am also trying to get a panorama done with an Inspire 1 and the Litchi App, but it does not excecute the panormana function . . .

Has anybody been shooting a 360x180 degrees panorama successfully with the Inspire 1?

By the way: I am using the Litchi App on a Crystalsky display (=Android) , but I would even buy an Ipad if this would be the solution . . .

Thanks in advance!

Hello, I just purchased the HDRpano and what a piece of junk.  Nothing works when using it on an osmo pro, so i will NOT try it on my inspire 2.  Are you still using litchi and if so i assume you are using the 45mm.  Can you share your experience since this posting please.

Stratosphere 4 Posted at 8-25 14:49
Hello, I just purchased the HDRpano and what a piece of junk.  Nothing works when using it on an osmo pro, so i will NOT try it on my inspire 2.  Are you still using litchi and if so i assume you are using the 45mm.  Can you share your experience since this posting please.

I'm not sure if you're addressing this question to me, but yes, I'm still using Litchi to shot spherical panoramas with Inspire 2. For what I know this is the one and only app capable to employ yawing gimbal of Inspire 2 (not Inspire 1). Be aware, however, that Litchi for CrystalSky device sold by Amazon Store need periodical licence validation. Other words, CrystalSky must be connected to a network occasionally. I've left mine off the grid for too long and lost the rights to use Litchi until further actions. iOS version of Litchi (purchased previously) for my iPad Air 2 works flawlessly as expected, no periodical licence validation required ...

Although 45mm lens and X5S camera will render amazingly detailed pano, it will challenge a single pair of batteries with well over 150 pics to shot. I'm using mostly 25mm lens, shooting 58 images starting at 100 deg row by row (12 columns x 6 rows). I don't care much about upper part of a sphere unless the sky features are spectacular enough to be capturing worthy. For this I'm using my DSLR on ground. By the end of shooting the sequence I still have approx. 50% battery left to fool around, make some video and get home safely.

WARNING: Litchi is executing pano charmingly, but after it's done the gimbal yaw remains locked to some weird angle. Other words  the gimbal doesn't follow Inspire's yaws. Small annoyance when you know it, but be aware and watch red heading arrow in relation to Home position. Even better, hit RTH and let it do the job ...

mikereidphotography Posted at 2018-8-14 17:18
All I've done so far is throw raw files into LR and use it's pano feature.  Microsoft's Image Composite Editor does nice work too.  I get better panos when using the 25mm or longer lenses.

Lovely capture

mikereidphotography Posted at 2018-8-14 17:18
All I've done so far is throw raw files into LR and use it's pano feature.  Microsoft's Image Composite Editor does nice work too.  I get better panos when using the 25mm or longer lenses.

Thats a stunning image,  great capture. thanks for sharing.