Impose map onto 3D globe?

[Sendrith]

Hey there,

I've had an odd thought about making a world map to actually fit a 3D globe that could be scrolled / navigated like Google maps or earth.

Has anyone here done something like this or have links to good tutorials?


From googling around I've found some ways to do it in Blender which I'll give a go but if someone knows any tricks I'd be curious.

Thanks!

[selden]

What is it that you'd actually like to accomplish?

Trying to create something from scratch in Blender might not be the most efficient way to do it, although learning Blender can be profitable in itself.

Once you have an image which is drawn using the "equirectangular" map projection, you can use any of a large variety of programs to draw that map on a sphere, either as a fixed image (photoshop plugins are available for this) or with an interactive result.

Personally I like to use Celestia to interact with planetary maps, but there are many other ways to do it.

One of them is to use Google Earth itself:

1. Create an Image Overlay: Right-click "My Places" and select "Add > Image Overlay". Give the overlay a name, and then either put the URL of the image in the Link box or click the Browse... button to use a file from your computer.

2. Position the Image: On the Location tab change the borders of the image so it covers the whole globe, i.e. North: 90N, South: 90S, East: 180E, West: 180W.

Turn off any layers that will interfere with your map, such as roads, borders, labels, terrain, etc. If the borders don't line up with yours, you probably have a map projection other than equirectangular.

The instructions above were extracted from https://worldbuilding.stackexchange....p-onto-a-globe

[Sendrith]

Hey Selden,

Thanks for the head's up on Google earth, I didn't know that was an option. Attached quick shot of an image overlay. Aspect ratios/image size will need to be adjusted but this seems doable.

Downloaded Celestia but I think I'll need to read a few things to get an idea of what to do there.

[johnvanvliet]

getting a map to wrap around a sphere correctly can be difficult

there is the polar distortion of a "simple cylindrical" projection

like Selden i use Celestia for a lot of displaying world maps ( we both have been using it for many many years )


for working on the polar areas " Gimp" has a built in tool to remap a "simple cylindrical" projection to a " Polar stereographic" projection
-- and remap BACK to "simple cylindrical" projection after editing it

if you post what you have so far we can then point you to the tools and guides to help you

also i use Blender a lot for rendering images of full planets
-- examples in Blender
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=948

and Venus
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/vi....php?f=4&t=938

and an example in Celestia
http://forum.celestialmatters.org/vi....php?f=4&t=878

[Phergus]

A simple and straightforward way to do this is with MapToGlobe. https://www.maptoglobe.com/

You can upload your equirectangular map and overlay it on a globe.