Recenter your 360° photo for free
Choose where your panorama opens. Upload a 360° photo, click the spot buyers should see first, and download the recentered image at full resolution.
Drop your 360° photo here
Equirectangular (2:1) JPG, PNG or WebP from Insta360, Ricoh Theta, GoPro Max or any 360° camera.
Choose a fileWhat does it mean to recenter a 360° photo?
Recentering a 360° photo changes its starting view: the direction a viewer faces the moment the panorama opens. A 360° photo is stored as a flat equirectangular image, twice as wide as it is tall, and almost every viewer opens it at the horizontal center of that image.
So recentering is a horizontal shift. The part of the room you pick moves to the middle of the image, and whatever falls off one edge wraps around to the other. The left and right edges of a 360° photo meet behind the viewer, so the result is seamless: nothing is cropped, stretched or lost.
Why the starting view matters on a listing
The starting view is the first impression of the room. A panorama that opens on a blank wall, a closed door or a corner of the hallway makes the home look smaller and the listing look careless, and plenty of buyers never drag to look around.
A 360° camera sets the center wherever its front lens happened to point when you took the shot. Recentering lets you open every room on its best angle instead: the view through the window, the kitchen island, or the full length of the living room.
It also makes a tour easier to follow. When each room opens facing the way a visitor would walk in, moving from one panorama to the next feels natural instead of disorienting.
How to change the starting view of a 360° photo
It takes about ten seconds, on a computer or a phone.
- Upload the panorama. Drop in the equirectangular JPG, PNG or WebP exported by your 360° camera or its app.
- Click the new center. Click the part of the room viewers should see first, or drag the guide. The starting view preview shows exactly what the photo will open on.
- Fine-tune the angle. Use the rotation slider, or the 90° and 180° buttons, to line the view up precisely.
- Recenter and download. Click Recenter 360° photo. The new panorama appears below in a 360° viewer, ready to download as a full-resolution JPG.
Does recentering reduce quality or break the 360° format?
No. Recentering doesn't resample the image: every pixel moves sideways at its original size, so the photo keeps its exact dimensions and sharpness. The file is saved as a 95% quality JPG, which looks the same as the original.
Browsers strip photo metadata when they save an image, and without it most platforms treat a panorama as an extra-wide flat photo. This tool writes the 360° tags (Google's GPano XMP metadata) back into the file and keeps your camera's EXIF data, such as the capture date and GPS location. If the original photo recorded a compass heading, the heading is turned to match the new center, so the panorama still faces the right way on a map.
Where to use a recentered 360° photo
A recentered panorama works anywhere a standard equirectangular 360° photo does: Facebook 360° posts, Google Maps photo spheres, virtual tour software, and property portals that accept 360° images.
Building a tour for a listing? Pedra turns your 360° photos into a hosted virtual tour, lets you pull regular listing photos out of the same shots, and can generate a floor plan from the tour.
Frequently asked questions
How do I change the starting point of a 360° photo?
Open the photo in a recentering tool like this one, click the spot you want to face first, and download the result. The tool shifts the panorama so that spot sits in the middle of the image, which is where 360° viewers open a photo.
Why does my 360° photo open facing the wrong direction?
A 360° camera puts the center of the image wherever its front lens was pointing when the photo was taken. If the camera was set up without thinking about which way it faced, the panorama opens on that side of the room. Recentering fixes it afterwards, without reshooting.
Is my 360° photo uploaded to a server?
No. The photo is processed entirely in your browser and never leaves your device, so it's safe to use on listings that aren't public yet.
Will Facebook still show it as a 360° photo?
Yes. The downloaded JPG includes the GPano metadata Facebook uses to detect 360° photos, so it posts as an interactive panorama and opens on your new center.
What file types and sizes does it support?
Equirectangular JPG, PNG and WebP panoramas with a 2:1 ratio. Desktop browsers handle full resolution from current 360° cameras, including 72 MP photos. Some phone browsers limit how large an image can be; if yours does, the tool tells you and saves a smaller version.
Does recentering change the resolution or crop the photo?
No. The output has exactly the same width and height as the original. Nothing is cropped, because the part that moves off one side reappears on the other.
Can I change the vertical angle or straighten the horizon?
Not with this tool. It changes the horizontal starting direction, which is what 360° viewers use; they open at the horizon, so there is no vertical starting angle to set. To level a tilted horizon, use your camera's desktop app, as most include horizon correction.
Does it work with 360° videos?
No. The tool works with 360° still photos only.
What is an equirectangular image?
It's the standard file format for 360° photos: the whole sphere around the camera flattened into a rectangle twice as wide as it is tall, like a world map. The left and right edges meet behind the viewer, and the top and bottom rows stretch out to become the ceiling and the floor.
Is the 360° photo recentering tool really free?
Yes. There's no signup, no watermark and no limit on how many photos you recenter.
Turn your 360° photos into a virtual tour
Upload the panoramas for every room and Pedra builds the tour for you, with as many tours as you need on every listing and no fee per tour.
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