: GIMP - Flat image to round ball surface (sphere) Using GIMP 2.8. Trying to map an image to a sphere. The idea is to make custom Christmas balls. In addition to map to sphere, I have tried

@Si6392903

I probably am sumarizing what others already sayed.

Use Filter > Map > Map to sphere.

Gimp is simulating a spherical projection. This is a type of projection that starts from an image with proportions 2:1



But in the case of Gimp the implementation asumes that you also wants the proportion of the image you loaded.

So will give you back a spheroid.



To compensate this, resize your original artboard from the proportion 2:1 to a square.



And you will get a sphere. Or use the artboard at the 2:1 proportion and resize the spheroid.



Take a look at this paper to understand why the 2:1 proportion on the spherical projection. www.otake.com.mx/Apuntes/Imagen/EnviromentMaps/

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@Sent7350415

Map to sphere is fairly straightforward, the whole width of the image is mapped to the equator and the height is mapped to a meridian, so if you do not want your object to cover the whole sphere you need to add margins. A square image produces a sphere, and since the width of the image is mapped to the double of the height and everything looks stretched 2x horizontally, so you have to shrink horizontally (or strech vertically) first.

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