Hello!
Firstly, I’m very delighted see this active and supportive community to help people explore the world of UAVs! Keep it up! 
My thesis project would be modifying the Mission Planner to optimise the path planning stage by taking into things such as: best pattern selection (among lawnmower, Zamboni, spiral, etc.), optimal path to conserve max. battery when flying over hilly areas, etc.
For this, could anyone tell me if there’s a classification for waypoints in MP, such that the UAV knows when the imaging path is over and it is free to take a turn (at the edges of a lawnmower pattern, for example).
Also, could anyone advise me on how could I approach this work – would it be via writing a plugin for the existing code on GitHub? (If so, which folders and what are the things that would require modification?)
Any help or insight would be greatly appreciated! 
Many thanks,
Fahim
The GitHub repo I was referring to: github.com/diydrones/MissionPlanner