3d scan of imperfect globe to a 2d Equirectangular Projection

[Vigilus]

@ Daniel

Thanks for the response!

Your approach seems to be right on target as far as I can tell on initial observation.
I'm going to look into this path. I've had this issue before the eyes of the blender artists community, polycount and this forum. So far the problem remains unsolved and I have my handy new christmas gifts in hand, Blender for Dummies and Mr. Blain's Blender Graphics book. I keep getting that it's really simple yet nobody seems to know how it's done. I'm going to play with your idea, thanks for the new software mentions!

[Vigilus]

I haven't looked at this post in a long time. After rereading this haphazard search, I never updated the solution I eventually found. Sorry about that! I found this guy who had a program that would take many, many pictures of a virtual object. Then the pictures are easily mapped onto an equirectangular projection. After a week of emails and sending one file, he had it perfectly mapped out with almost no detail loss whatsoever. This process has had a few years to grow since then, so check out it.