PanGazer lets you fill part of a spherical panorama with a smoothed rendition using existing data from the image.  This has three uses:

• A part-spherical panorama (e.g., an image that was created from drone photographs that had limited coverage above the horizon, such as the PanGazer ‘starter image’) can be converted to a full sphere by extending it above the top edge of the image.  This is required for some sharing platforms – see Sharing images for more details.

  To do this, use the Image → Expand image to full sphere menu selection; this will open a new view with a copy of the image extended to a full sphere so you can inspect it before saving.

  Alternatively, select the Image → Resize image and save as ... menu item; this opens a dialog that lets you change the size of the image before saving with the option of extending the panorama to full-sphere.  For details, see the Saving images page.

• A circle around the bottom (nadir) of an existing spherical panorama can be filled.  This is useful for panoramas taken with a 360° camera that is hand-held or supported by a tripod: the person holding the camera or the tripod base can be obscured.

  To do this, right-click on the image at a point where you’d like the smoothing towards the nadir to originate then select Fill image around nadir (−90°) from cursor; this will open a new view with a modified copy of the panorama so you can inspect it before saving.

• Similarly, a circle around the top (zenith) of a spherical panorama can be filled.  This can be useful for panoramas taken with a 360° camera that is suspended from above.  It can also be used to extend a partial sphere from a latitude lower than the top edge of the panorama.

  To do this, right-click on the image at a point where you’d like the smoothing towards the zenith to originate then select Fill image around zenith (+90°) from cursor; this will open a new view with a modified copy of the panorama so you can inspect it before saving.

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Notes:

1. Three useful keyboard shortcuts when creating fills are ‘H’, ‘N’, and ‘Z’ which set the current view to the Horizon, Nadir, and Zenith, respectively (if possible).

2. The PanGazer filling algorithm uses only data from the current image so does not affect the authorship or copyright of the image (unlike some “AI” algorithms which use data from others’ images).

3. The menu items mentioned above will be ‘greyed out’ or not shown if not applicable.