6-Point Perspective Grid
Everything around you, including what is behind you, in a single disc. Six vanishing points, one grid.
The whole sphere in one disc
Every other grid on this site shows what is in front of the camera. Six-point perspective shows what is around it. Stand in the middle of a room and imagine everything you could see by turning your head in every direction, then squeeze all of it into one circle: the point straight ahead in the centre, the four points to the sides and above and below halfway out, and the point directly behind you spread along the rim. Every straight line in the room becomes an arc between two of those six points, and no part of the room is left out.
The grid uses the same equidistant projection as the fisheye and five-point pages, pushed to 360°. The dashed inner ring is the 90° circle: everything inside it is in front of you (the whole of a five-point picture, shrunk), everything between the ring and the rim is behind you, reversed and stretched as it approaches the rear point. The dashed curve through the middle is the horizon, which now runs all the way round: it is straight through the centre when the camera is level and closes into the rim at the back.
Reading a six-point grid
Ground squares of one metre radiate from the nadir on the 90° ring and wrap round to meet the rim behind you; the same floor appears twice, once ahead and once, inverted, at the back of the disc. Walls that run away from you leave the centre as arcs, cross the 90° ring at the left or right point, and continue toward the rim. Verticals are arcs from the zenith to the nadir through the ring, and behind you they curve the other way. The far half of the picture is where drawings usually go wrong: remember that the rim is a single direction, so any object partly behind you touches the rim in only one place.
Drawing with it
Build the scene in the centre first, as a five-point picture inside the 90° ring, then continue each edge past the ring toward the rim. Objects behind you are drawn last and small; they are what makes the image read as a full sphere rather than a fisheye photograph. Export a transparent PNG at your canvas size for Procreate, Clip Studio, Photoshop or Krita, or an SVG for real vector arcs. Drop the angle to 270° for a view that still includes most of what is behind you without the compression at the rim. The curvilinear perspective lesson covers the construction; the 5-point grid is the front half of this one, and the fisheye grid the same view framed like a lens.
Questions
What is 6-point perspective?
Curvilinear perspective extended from a 180° view to the full 360°. To the five points of five-point perspective — left, right, up, down and straight ahead — it adds the sixth, directly behind the viewer. Everything you could see by turning on the spot fits inside one circle.
Where is the sixth vanishing point?
On the rim. At 360° the whole rim of the disc is one point, the direction behind you; the left, right, zenith and nadir points sit on the dashed 90° ring halfway out, and the centre is straight ahead. Lines that pass behind you run from the centre out to the rim and appear to leave the picture there.
How is this different from a 360° panorama?
A panorama unrolls the sphere onto a strip, keeping verticals straight and cutting the view somewhere behind you. Six-point keeps the sphere whole and flattens it into a disc, so nothing is cut but everything curves. Both show the same content; six-point is the one that fits in a single square panel.
Can I set the angle between 180° and 360°?
Yes. Anything past 180° starts to include what is behind you; 270° shows three quarters of the sphere with the rear direction still off the page. The 90° ring appears as soon as the angle passes 180°.
What do people draw in 6-point perspective?
Total environments: a character standing in the middle of a room, a street or a forest with the ground, the sky and the view behind all in one image; spherical panoramas for VR and 360° video storyboards; and set pieces in comics and animation where the reader is meant to feel surrounded.