I’ve shot nearly 6 million 360-degree images so far using a 2-lens camera mounted on an “invisible” selfie stick. Up until now, I haven’t used a nadir shield, and I’m honestly quite happy with the results. The stitching software does a great job of removing the stick, leaving the nadir mostly clean except for the occasional minor artifact or shadow.
However, I wanted to check in with the community: Do you think it’s still worth adding a digital nadir shield/patch to the bottom of the images?
While it can hide shadows or add a branded look, I’m concerned it might cover up actual road data or just look too intrusive on the map. What’s the general consensus or best practice among heavy mappers here?
Back when I was shooting with older cameras like the Insta360 X3, the internal horizon stabilization wasn’t perfect. When G. processed the files and tried to digitally fix the tilting horizon in the cloud, it often resulted in those typical sickle-shaped or swirling stitching artifacts right at the nadir point.
However, with modern consumer 360 cams (like the Insta X4-6, GoPro MAX 2, or DJI Osmo 360 series), this problem is completely gone. Their built-in IMUs and hardware-level Horizon Lock deliver a perfectly leveled image straight out of the camera. Since the platform’s algorithm no longer needs to bend the projection to fix the horizon, the nadir remains geometrically perfect and clean.
Seeing this evolution over millions of images made me realize that digital nadir shields are largely a technical relic of the past. Using them on modern dual-lens hardware doesn’t fix a camera limitation anymore—it just destroys perfectly fine map data.
For the time being, I’ll continue to use the nadir shield. This is because I have several images in which my face isn’t blurred correctly or completely. It’s impossible for me to check all my contributions and blur them manually at this stage.
Building on this, I would like to point out a very specific shift we are currently seeing, especially with how Google Street View (GSV) handles data lately.
Lately, GSV has been increasingly merging individual 360-degree still images and continuous “blue lines” into the exact same spatial experience. Because of this integration, the persistence of a masked nadir on these newer still images has become quite incomprehensible to me.
While Local Guides contributing individual blue dots usually upload clean, unmasked images—where modern dual-lens cameras and invisible selfie sticks completely eliminate the tripod—official tracks or commercial partner data still suffer from that artificial, blurred nadir circle.
If individual stills and continuous tracks are now part of the same unified sphere in modern mapping platforms, we should move away from these legacy processing habits. With today’s stitch-stitching capabilities, forcing a nadir shield onto a 360 still image feels like a step backward. It unnecessarily blocks the ground view without adding any technical value.
I believe this was originally due to purely technical reasons. Given the technical limitations and the need to house multiple cameras within a larger camera dome, the nadir area usually detracted from the visual appearance of the final result.
I consider buying an Insta360 X6 and I will add a Nadir shield. I will build one which additional information like creator, copyright information (CC BY-SA-4.0), used camera, date and location. So it’s not just a badge, but also gives additional information, especially when used in environments where exif cannot be displayed properly
But I agree, the modern 360 cameras have mude huge progress in correct stitching
