Prepare the nadir
The nadir is the downward-facing portion of a spherical panorama. In an equirectangular file it may be split by the left and right canvas edges, so a repair that looks correct in a flat editor can show a seam in the viewer.
Save a layered master and mark the tripod footprint, cast shadow, and any nearby objects that should remain. Keep the original pixel data below your repair layers.
- Identify whether the tripod is centered or crosses the wraparound edge.
- Check the viewer's bottom angle before deciding how much to repair.
- Work at full resolution.
Choose a repair method
A clean floor or grass texture can be rebuilt with clone and healing tools. A patterned floor, water surface, or architectural feature usually needs a perspective-aware patch or content-aware fill followed by manual cleanup.
For a professional result, capture a separate nadir plate with the tripod moved or held aside. Align that plate in the same projection before masking it into the panorama.
- Use cloning for repeating texture and healing for small tonal transitions.
- Use a plate when the tripod hides complex geometry.
- Keep the mask soft over texture changes but precise along hard edges.
Make the repair wrap safely
Temporarily place the left and right edges side by side or use a wraparound view. Paint across the boundary only when the source texture continues naturally; otherwise clone from a matching area on the same side of the seam.
A circular patch may look plausible in the flat file but become a visible disk when viewed from below. Rotate the panorama in a 360 preview if your software provides one.
- Inspect the repair from the nadir and from a normal standing viewpoint.
- Match blur, grain, color, and shadow softness to nearby pixels.
- Avoid repeating distinctive stones, boards, or grass clumps.
Handle shadows and metadata
Removing the tripod does not necessarily mean removing every shadow. A faint, believable contact shadow can ground the camera position, while a sharp floating shadow is distracting. Paint with the scene's existing light direction.
After editing, preserve the spherical metadata required by the destination. Metadata does not fix a bad nadir, but missing metadata can make a finished equirectangular image display as a flat rectangle.
- Compare repaired brightness with adjacent floor or ground.
- Do not blur the entire nadir to hide texture differences.
- Verify the output in the intended 360 viewer.
Nadir checklist
Use this check before delivery:
- The tripod, mount, and unwanted shadow are removed or intentionally retained.
- The repair does not repeat an obvious object.
- The left and right edges wrap without a line.
- The nadir looks natural when viewed from below.
- Spherical projection and metadata remain intact.
