How to upload media files

Overview

Bring your site photos, drone imagery, and 360° panoramas into your Project so they appear at their real-world location — right alongside your point clouds and maps. Each photo is placed as a pin in the viewer at its GPS capture location. Click any pin to open the image full-screen.

What you can upload

• You can upload multiple files at once

• When uploading more than 3 files, you can group them into a folder and give the group a name (e.g., “North site - March visit”).

Before you start

For a photo to appear at the correct location in your Project, it must contain GPS coordinates (latitude and longitude) in its metadata. Most phones and drones save this automatically when GPS is enabled — you usually don't need to do anything.

How to upload media files

1. Open your Project.

2. Click Upload in the top-right corner of the Project page and select Media.

3. Select your files by clicking to browse, or drag and drop them directly into the upload area. You can select multiple files at once.

4. Review the pre-upload list — each file will show one of three statuses before anything uploads. See Understanding file statuses below.

5. Remove any files marked ❌ Cannot upload, or fix the issue and re-add them. All errors must be resolved before the remaining files can proceed.

6. Optionally, group your files into a named folder by clicking Add to folder and entering a folder name.

7. Click Upload.

✅ Confirmation: Once uploaded, your photos appear as pins in the viewer at their GPS capture location.

Understanding file statuses

Stitch3D scans each file before uploading and shows you a review list. Each file will show one of three states:

Common reasons a file is blocked (❌):

• Missing GPS data — the photo has no location metadata and cannot be placed on the map

• Special characters in filename — rename the file using plain letters, numbers, hyphens, and underscores only

• File exceeds 1 GB — compress or resize the file before re-uploading

• Storage limit exceeded — your plan's storage limit would be reached. See “How to upgrade your storage” to upgrade or free up space

How it works in different project types

Georeferenced Projects Photos are placed at their real-world GPS coordinates and appear both on the 2D map and inside the 3D viewer. This is the standard workflow for most users.

Quickstart Projects Quickstart Projects don't have a defined coordinate system. Photos can be placed on the 2D map view only. You'll see a ⚠️ warning on each file explaining this, but the upload will still proceed.

360° panoramas

Stitch3D automatically detects equirectangular panorama files on upload — you don't need to flag them manually. In the viewer:

• 360° panoramas display with an Orbit icon

• Regular photos display with an Image icon

Click a panorama pin to open it in the full-screen panorama viewer.

After upload

Your photos appear as pins in the viewer at their GPS capture location. From the viewer you can:

• Click any pin to open the photo full-screen

• Navigate panoramas by clicking and dragging inside the panorama viewer

• Download photos (subject to the download permissions you've set for shared users)

Troubleshooting

My photos uploaded but aren't showing as pins in the viewer Confirm your photos have embedded GPS metadata. Open a photo on your device and check the file properties or EXIF data to look for latitude and longitude values. If there are none, the photo cannot be placed on the map with the current version of the uploader.

My panoramas are displaying as regular photos Stitch3D detects panoramas automatically based on the image's aspect ratio and metadata. If a panorama is showing an Image icon instead of an Orbit icon, it may not be in a standard equirectangular format. Re-export from your panorama software in equirectangular format and re-upload.

Related articles

What file types does Stitch3D support?

How to upload point clouds

How to upload rasters (GeoTIFF)

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