Abstract: The near field of acoustic scattering from curved rigid surfaces can be calculated using the planar element method with the transmitter and receiver placed separately The effect of scattering on direction-finding of multimode spherical hydrophones is discussed The results indicate that scattering from curved rigid surfaces can cause large errors in some azimuths,meanwhile changes in frequency and elevation of the incident plane acoustic waves also have large influence on direction-finding The influence of non-coplanarity of equivalent acoustic centers upon direction finding is greater than that due to asymmetry when curved rigid surfaces exist.