As previously announced, support for PIX4Dcapture has officially ended, and the basemap service was discontinued - this has left me scrambling to find alternatives for automated flight planning. I've been using PIX4Dcapture for years for systematic grid missions, and now I need to transition to something else quickly. What flight planning apps are you using now for photogrammetry missions? I'm particularly interested in apps that can handle complex terrain following and maintain consistent overlap percentages. The software requires enough overlapping images to process and controls the flight path to ensure optimal overlap. DJI's apps seem limited compared to what PIX4Dcapture offered.

I switched to DroneDeploy's mission planning after the PIX4Dcapture announcement. Both platforms offer automated flight planning to simplify the data collection process using drones. The platform includes features like automated flight planning, cloud processing, and real-time data visualization. It's not identical to PIX4Dcapture but handles terrain following well enough for most projects.

This is exactly why I never relied on a single vendor's ecosystem. Third-party apps like Litchi or even open-source solutions like Mission Planner give you more control and won't disappear overnight. The industry needs to stop being so dependent on proprietary flight planning tools.

As a new user, what should I be looking for in flight planning software? I'm just getting into photogrammetry and want to avoid making the same mistake of picking something that might get discontinued. Are there any key features that are absolutely essential?