How to correct missing data over water

[BrianBulla]

See the image below.  This is a flight over some lagoons that I only half finished, but the part I did finish did not come out that great.  Is there a recommended way to fly when there is a lot of water?  It seems like it can't stitch together the tiles and so data is missing.

Should I maybe do this from a higher altitude (I thought I was high to begin with)?  Or maybe lower??  Less overlap or more??

Any help is appreciated.

[AndrewBowne · Accepted solution]

Try flying higher if you can, a little slower, and more overlap.  You could also try flying on an overcast day.  Reflection off of water can cause the issues you are seeing.

[BrianBulla]

Hi,

Yes, flying higher seems to fix this issue.  Thanks!

[NicoBonnafoux]

@BrianBulla in addition to Andrew's suggestion, give the Reality Engine beta a try, it handles water and reflective surface better, with further improvements coming soon. 
In the future, we'll also add the "Water Body Correction Feature" available in the desktop ArcGIS Reality products, which flattens water areas and helps avoid gaps. 

[BrianBulla]

Hi @NicoBonnafoux .  I just reprocessed the above using the Reality Engine, but I would say things did not improve.

Is there a particular setting I need to adjust in Site Scan??

[NicoBonnafoux]

If that's the case, I suspect the issue is with your source images. 

Could you share a screenshot with the image locations displayed, and perhaps a few of the images? 

Based on your previous note stating that flying higher helped improve the results, I suspect this capture was flown lower and has many images showing only water. 

[BrianBulla]

Hi,

Here are the photos.  I still need to go back to this site as I need to finish it completely, fly it higher, and on a cloudy day.  These are the lower, sunny day images.

[NicoBonnafoux]

Flying higher will definitely help here to ensure you don't have images showing only water which leads to a lack of tie points between images. 
It also seems your overlap isn't consistent, I suggest making sure you're using a high-end SD card with a fast write speed (U3/V30 class or better).