• Free Tool – No Sign-Up Required
Free Little Planet Generator
— Turn Any 360° Panorama into a Tiny Planet
Turning a drone or 360° panorama into a little planet usually means round-tripping through desktop software just to preview one angle. This tool renders the full stereographic projection live in your browser. Tilt, pan, zoom and spin it until the planet looks right, adjust exposure and color, then export straight to the aspect ratio your platform actually wants. Nothing is ever uploaded; the whole thing runs on your device.
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Turn a 360° panorama into a tiny planet. The projection is rendered right here in your browser — nothing is uploaded anywhere.
The Fundamentals
What Does the Little Planet Tool Do?
This is a free browser-based little planet (also called “tiny planet” or “stereographic”) photo generator. It takes an equirectangular panorama — the flat, 2:1 wraparound image format produced by 360° cameras, DJI panorama mode, and most panorama-stitching software — and renders it through a projection that curls the horizon into a full circle, with one pole at the center and the opposite pole spread around the outer rim. Four sliders control the framing: Tilt and Pan move which point on the sphere sits at the center of the frame, Spin rotates the result around that center point, and Zoom controls the field of view — wider values push more of the sphere into the frame for a more dramatic curl, narrower values flatten the effect toward something closer to a normal photo.
A Shape toggle switches between the classic circular crop (transparent corners) and a full square fill that extends the same projection math into the corners instead of cutting them off — useful when a platform’s post format doesn’t handle transparency well. A separate Rabbit Hole toggle inverts which pole sits at the center, swapping the usual “ground in the middle, sky around the rim” look for the inverted version where the sky forms the tunnel you’re looking down into.
Below the framing controls sits a full adjustment panel — exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, temperature and tint — applied live to the projection itself, not just the flat source image, so you can correct or stylize the result without leaving the tool. When you’re ready to export, pick from four aspect ratio presets (square, 4:5 portrait, 9:16 for Stories and Reels, or 16:9 landscape) and download a full-resolution PNG rendered fresh at that ratio, up to 4096px on the long edge.
What Makes a Photo Work as a Little Planet
Not every panorama makes a good little planet, and the difference usually comes down to what’s at the two poles. The projection compresses the entire sky (or the entire ground) into either a tiny point at the center or a thin ring around the outer edge, so a panorama with a busy, detailed foreground — a market square, a coastline, a drone shot looking straight down at a field pattern — tends to make a far more striking planet than one with a flat, empty sky and nothing but pavement underfoot. This is part of why the effect works so well with drone panoramas specifically: a nadir (straight-down) capture already has strong ground detail radiating outward from a single point, which is exactly the geometry the projection is built around.
Source format matters just as much as content. A proper equirectangular panorama is exactly 2:1 — 360° of horizontal coverage mapped against 180° of vertical coverage, from straight up to straight down. If a panorama was cropped, stitched with a gap, or exported at a different ratio, the poles no longer land where the math expects them to, and the result comes out stretched, off-center, or with a visible seam running through the planet. This is also why some DJI panorama exports need a quick edit to fill in an unstitched zenith or nadir gap before they’ll project cleanly — the tool can’t infer missing pixels at the exact point everything else in the frame converges toward.
Step-by-Step Guide
How to Use the Little Planet Tool
Step 1 — Load your panorama
Drop a JPG or PNG panorama onto the dropzone, or click to browse. Nothing is uploaded — the file is read and processed entirely on your device. Works best with a standard 2:1 equirectangular panorama; the tool will flag it if the aspect ratio looks off.
Step 2 — Frame your planet
Use Tilt and Pan to choose which part of the panorama sits at the center of the circle, Spin to rotate the result, and Zoom to control how much of the sphere gets pulled into the frame — wide for a dramatic full curl, narrower for a gentler effect.
Step 3 — Choose Circle or Square
Switch the Shape toggle depending on where the image is headed — Circle for the classic transparent-corner planet, Square to fill the full frame if you need a solid image with no transparency.
Step 4 — Try Rabbit Hole if you want the inverted look
Check the invert toggle to swap which pole sits at the center, turning the usual ground-centered planet into the sky-centered "looking down a tunnel" variant.
Step 5 — Fine-tune exposure and color
Use the Adjustments panel — exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, saturation, temperature and tint — to correct or stylize the projection before export, without needing a separate editing pass afterward.
Step 6 — Pick your aspect ratio and download
Choose the ratio that matches where you're posting — square for a standard feed post, 4:5 for Instagram's taller feed format, 9:16 for Stories, Reels, TikTok or Shorts, or 16:9 for landscape use — then download a full-resolution PNG rendered fresh at that exact ratio.
FAQ — Little Planet Generator
What is a little planet photo effect?
It’s a projection that wraps a 360° panorama into a circle, compressing one pole (usually the sky or the ground) to a single point at the center while the opposite pole stretches around the outer rim — the result looks like a tiny curved planet floating in space, built entirely from the original panorama’s content.
How do you turn a panorama into a little planet?
You need a full equirectangular (2:1) panorama and a stereographic projection tool. Upload the panorama, then adjust tilt, pan and zoom until the framing looks right — this tool does that live in your browser with an instant preview, rather than requiring a round trip through desktop software.
Can I make a little planet image online for free?
Yes — this tool runs entirely in your browser with no sign-up, no watermark, and no upload. Your panorama is never sent to a server; the projection, adjustments and export all happen locally.
What's the difference between a little planet and a rabbit hole photo?
They’re the same projection with opposite poles at the center. A standard little planet puts the ground at the center with sky wrapped around the rim; a rabbit hole inverts that, putting the sky at the center so it looks like you’re looking down a tunnel. The Rabbit Hole toggle switches between the two without needing a different tool.
Why does my little planet look stretched or off-center?
This almost always means the source panorama isn’t a true 2:1 equirectangular image — it may have been cropped, stitched with a gap, or exported at the wrong ratio. The projection assumes a specific mapping between the image and the sphere, so anything off that ratio throws the poles out of alignment.
What aspect ratio should I use for Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts?
Use square (1:1) or portrait (4:5) for an Instagram feed post, 9:16 for Instagram Stories, Reels, TikTok, or YouTube Shorts, and 16:9 for landscape use like a YouTube thumbnail or website banner. The tool exports fresh at whichever ratio you pick rather than just cropping a square render after the fact.
Can I use a drone panorama to make a little planet?
Yes — drone panoramas, especially nadir (straight-down) captures with strong ground detail radiating from a single point, tend to produce some of the most striking little planets, since that geometry lines up naturally with how the projection compresses the frame.
Is my photo uploaded anywhere when I use this tool?
No. The panorama is read directly from your device, and the entire projection, adjustment, and export pipeline runs locally in your browser. Closing the tab discards everything.
What image format and resolution does this tool export?
Exports are PNG files, rendered fresh at your chosen aspect ratio up to 4096px on the long edge — not a crop of a fixed-size render, so image quality holds regardless of which ratio you pick.
Why does the zoom slider make the planet more or less distorted?
Zoom controls the field of view being projected into the circle. A wider field of view pulls more of the sphere’s curvature into the same frame, producing a more dramatic, tightly-wrapped planet; a narrower field of view shows less of the sphere, flattening the effect toward something closer to an ordinary wide-angle photo.
Also From AeroTimelapse
Turning a panorama into a little planet is only half the workflow — these tools help with the capture side, and with other browser-based post-processing
See the Whole Sky In One Frame
Drop in a panorama and watch it curl into a planet in real time — tilt, zoom, adjust the color, pick your ratio, done. No upload, no account, no round trip through another app.
Need help capturing professional drone footage for your next project but not ready to invest in the gear yet? Check out our Drone Videography service to see how Aero Timelapse Studio can help elevate your production.