Terraced effect from aerial images, causes?

[chrisd]

The attached pic show a terraced or stepped effect from aerial images. Unfortunately I don't have the original images to test them in Photoscan. I know a DJ Phantom was used to capture the images, but don't have info about the specific camera. The mesh was not generated by Photoscan.

I looked at few cross sections through the mesh and there are small but abrupt differences in elevation corresponding to the visible change in the triangulation. There is some variation in elevation within each "terrace".

From searching other posts on the forum, it appears it can be attributed to not having enough images with sufficient overlap between images, or perhaps, the camera angle is highly oblique to the surface.

Are there other factors that might contribute to this issue?

I know since I can't supply any of the captured images or additional info any input will be generalized ...

[Matt]

Not enough overlap is the main cause for this that I have seen.  This generally happens in my projects around the edges which is why its important to fly a big buffer around you area of interest.