Help & Guides / Field / Mission Planner Guide
Plan a flight on the map: search the site address, draw the area, set GSD, altitude and overlaps, pick a drone and camera from your own fleet, and push the plan to Pilot 2 Cloud for the controller. The flight path draws live with area, distance, duration and photo-count readouts.
The planner turns a drawn area into a real DJI flight plan — lawnmower path, camera settings, the works — and gets it onto your aircraft through Pilot 2 Cloud. Missions live under Field ▸ Missions · /plan/missions, and every mission can belong to a Project so the flight, the processing, and the delivery stay on one record.
Field ▸ Missions ▸ New · /plan/missions/new
You get three ways in:
Coming from a project instead? Open the project and add a mission there — the planner links it automatically, and when you finish a boundary it offers “Add another mission” / “Back to the project.”
On a new mission, a Set up this mission dialog asks for a title, the site address, and the Mission type:
The search box sits on the left rail of the map (under the Dark / Satellite / Street basemap toggle). Type at least three characters of the address and live suggestions appear — pick one and the map flies to the property, drops a marker, and remembers the location for this mission.
Click ✏ Draw Polygon and click each corner of the area on the map; double-click to finish (Esc cancels). The moment the boundary saves, the planner draws your actual flight path on the map as a dashed yellow lawnmower pattern, and the readout bar shows Area (acres), GSD (cm/px), Distance, Duration, and Photos — computed from the real route, so they update as you change settings.
Have the boundary as a file already? 📁 Upload KML imports a KML/KMZ polygon as the flight area (a multi-polygon file can be split into separate missions).
The right-hand panel has two collection tabs — Ortho Collection and Oblique Collection — headed by two linked numbers: Ortho GSD (cm/px) and Altitude (ft). Edit either and the other follows, so you can plan by the resolution you owe the client or by the ceiling you’re allowed.
The main Settings section covers Route Altitude, Altitude Mode (relative to takeoff or MSL), Speed, Course Angle (the grid direction), and what the aircraft does on completion. Advanced Settings holds the photogrammetry knobs: Frontal Overlap Ratio (default 85%), Side Overlap Ratio (default 70%), photo mode, takeoff safety altitudes, margin, and terrain Elevation Optimization (keeps GSD consistent over changing ground).
Everything saves automatically — watch the Saved pill in the top bar; there’s no Save button.
The drone pill at the top left reads SELECT DRONE — from your fleet. It lists your actual equipment (add gear under Office ▸ Equipment · /office/equipment), and matches models by name — a drone saved as “DJI matrice4e” still resolves to the Matrice 4E flight profile. Under each drone, pick the camera: wide, tele, or thermal payloads where the model has them. Owned drones we don’t yet have a flight profile for appear under “Owned — planner profile pending” rather than disappearing — they just can’t generate a route yet.
By default the camera flies nadir (−90°, straight down). Flip Custom Camera Angle in Advanced Settings to set your own gimbal pitch — the Exported gimbal pitch readout always shows exactly what the exported plan will fly.
The ◱ Layers button adds KML/KMZ reference overlays — DOD airspace, your COA-approved area, parcels. These are visual only: they are never flown and never change the flight boundary. Mark one as your authorization area and the planner checks whether your boundary’s corners sit inside it and warns if the boundary extends outside. (To import a boundary you’ll actually fly, use 📁 Upload KML instead.)
Open the ⚙ gear menu:
From the missions list you can also push or re-sync several missions at once.
On a Powerline / Pole Corridor or Pole Inspection mission, the ⚡ Poles panel replaces the mapping tools: add poles by clicking the map (or import them from a KML/KMZ of points), connect midspan lines between poles, and track each structure’s field status — To do / Done / Issue / Refly — with a CSV field report export. Corridor missions can additionally generate per-pole orbit passes (radius, photos per ring, altitude, gimbal, capture mode) as downloadable KMZ legs.
Why doesn’t my drone show up in the picker? The picker lists your fleet — add the aircraft under Office ▸ Equipment first. If it’s listed under “planner profile pending,” we don’t have its flight profile yet, so route export isn’t available for that model.
Where are the overlap settings? Under Advanced Settings in the right panel: Frontal Overlap Ratio and Side Overlap Ratio. Defaults (85/70) suit most mapping jobs.
I changed the plan after pushing — do I need to do anything? Yes. The cloud pill flips to “Cloud: outdated” — push again from the ⚙ menu, and if the plan was already downloaded on the controller, remove it and re-download from Pilot 2’s Cloud tab.
Does adding a KML overlay change my flight path? No. Layers added via ◱ Layers are reference-only. Only 📁 Upload KML (boundary import) changes what you fly.