GIMP can make random world maps out of the box!

[RPMiller]

You know it occurs to me that some of the more modern map projections might be possible in PS and GIMP using some of the transforms... I may just give that a whirl at some point and if I succeed I'll create an action that can recreate the steps.

[RobA]

You know it occurs to me that some of the more modern map projections might be possible in PS and GIMP using some of the transforms... I may just give that a whirl at some point and if I succeed I'll create an action that can recreate the steps.

I would think definitely doable in GIMP, because of the MathMap plugin.

If you can write a math expression for the projection, mathmap can make it happen

-Rob A>
(P.S. Check out the flickr images tagged with mathmap to see the things this can do...)

[RPMiller]

It just so happens that I may actually be able to provide that expression. It might take a couple days though.

EDIT: After looking at the expressions, it looks like you are constrained to the size of your image and the result must match. They may not work as I was thinking of doing an Iso map which would require slicing the image.

[Faide]

I just downloaded the Felimage plugin and it's very good. I've been struggling to get noise to do some things and this has sorted out a few problems really nicely.

I've attatched a forest pattern I made using Felimage in less than 2 minutes. It could quite easily be more effective and a better shade of green.

Cheers for that!

Karl

[RobA]

I just downloaded the Felimage plugin and it's very good. I've been struggling to get noise to do some things and this has sorted out a few problems really nicely.

I've attatched a forest pattern I made using Felimage in less than 2 minutes. It could quite easily be more effective and a better shade of green.

Cheers for that!

Karl

Thanks for road testing it Karl! I know that there are many, many options, and it does take some playing to get results you want.

Could you save the preset, zip it up and attach? We might be able to peel this of and make a "Felimage presets" thread

-Rob A>

[RobA]

EDIT: After looking at the expressions, it looks like you are constrained to the size of your image and the result must match.

The canvas size will match, so as long as the input is scalled up to hold the desired output, it should be fine. For example if you wanted to map a 400x400 square to a 2:1 rectangle, you could end up with a 400x200 rectangle having blank space above and below....

or am I missing something

-Rob A>

[MGCJerry]

While FT can do this out of the box, the colors are more aligned to CC and not quite as pretty.

If you go into the menus to "Map" -> "Show Gaia", you'll get a better view with better colors.

You can also get a useful heightmap out of FT by going to "Map" -> "Show other Shader" -> "Show Bump map". Export that at a VERY large size, and use it for an image heightmap. This image is a result of importing such a height map into a Carrara terrain object, and placing the camera to a good looking area.

http://www.mgcjerry.net/Carrara6/winter.jpg

Anyway, for images mapped to spheres, I strictly use the 2:1 ratio. Of course, I map a lot of images to 3d objects, so you're milage will vary based on what the resulting image is for.

[Notsonoble]

For those running 2.6 it seems a lot of those scripts weren't sent with the binaries... here's the one I found... http://registry.gimp.org/node/8172

edit grr: this one actually creates a space view of a planet... I'll keep looking...

[RobA]

In most cases any one that creates a new image has been moved to the File>Create menu instead of the old xtns menu.

This happened as a part of adding an empty image window on startup.

-Rob A>

[Quillz]

Thanks for the notice about the shuffling of options in GIMP 2.6.