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Anon1066
Known Participant
September 2, 2023
Question

Using photos to map a 3D sphere onto a 2d map/plane?

  • September 2, 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 1336 views

I have a physical sphere with a pattern on it that I've photographed from every angle and I'm trying to figure out how to merge those images into a 2D surface. Photo Merge doesn't work well when I simply rotate the object but keep the camera stationary. I think I might need to move the camera through an arc to photograph the sphere, but that wouldn't give me every part of the surface to translate into a map of the sphere.

 

Are there any tips on getting Photoshop to translate these photos to a plane? I know there will be distortion, but I'm hoping there's some way within Photoshop to do this regardless.

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    1 reply

    Myra Ferguson
    Community Expert
    Myra FergusonCommunity Expert
    Community Expert
    September 12, 2023

    I was able to make the following image:

    from the pictures of the globe in this image:

    It's not perfect, but with a possibly more overlapping images of the globe and some cleanup of the details, you could fix some of the issues with it.

     

    Here are the steps I used:

    1. Remove the background.
    2. Separate each globes onto separate layers
    3. Export the separate globes as PNGs.
    4. Convert each globe in its new PNG to a Smart Object.
    5. Apply Filter > Distort > Spherize... as a Smart Filter to each globe (I used -50 but I wound up applying that same amount a second time).
    6. Rasterize each of the globes (You could duplicate them and then rasterize them so that you have a back up in case you need to make changes. They have to be rasterized for Photomerge.).
    7. Save the globes.
    8. Go to File > Automate > Photomerge... set to Auto with all the separate globe files as source files with all 4 options at the bottom of Photomerge selected.
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