Warping/distortion software search

[Repairman]

Just had an urgent packaging shot job land on my desk. I have to apply original A/W Illustrator graphics to a photograph of a yoghurt pot/tub. The A/W is created in a distorted form (arc shaped) so that when wrapped around a plastic pot (imagine the central portion of a cone) all the text and graphics are parallel to a flat surface. Unfortunately the pot photo is distorted in exactly the opposite direction (top to bottom) which involves a hefty amount of vertical distortion. If I had one to do I could use warp but I'm in a hurry and have to do three. Is there any pro level software you can recommend that will give me smooth distortion on a 40Mb file and allow realistic tight curving on the outer receding edges. Many thanks!

[shift studio]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

Can you alter the vector artwork in illustrator first? It may have a warp on it in Illustrator that you can reverse.

--shift studio.

[Repairman]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

There isn't enough 'fat' in the job to warrant the extra work Shift. If I bought some decent software I could at least claw back the outlay on subsequent projects. It's just one of those tedious jobs for a long standing client - I'll warp it for now but the tool is so clumsy I know I won't get identical results across the 3 images. Hopefully they won't notice! :-)

[klev]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

I'll warp it for now but the tool is so clumsy I know I won't get identical results across the 3 images. Hopefully they won't notice! :-)

You can probably guess my suggestion, but I figured time constraints and lack of a working setup would probably make it infeasible. I think rebuilding at least a basic model of the product to the closest possible dimensions, then setting up the scene in 3d software is the way to go. Most software packages have some kind of physical camera emulation. You can set up the appropriate film back to sensor dimensions. The lens focal length can be obtained from the exif information embedded in the raw files if they are available. From there you have a couple strategies for setting up camera angle and distance to match as closely as possible. The label can be applied as a texture after laying out UVs.

This can be done in something as cheap as Blender, which is free. It's not my favorite, but if we're talking about untransformed RGB values that just need to be appropriately reprojected, I think it's a good choice. I would have to look into how to appropriately set up a physical camera emulation, as their default one lacks certain tools. It might be something for the next job.

[Repairman]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

I hear you Klev and it would make sense to create a good master that could be used again and again. The client is 'blue chip' but, typically, won't spend £5 now to save £50 in the long run. What's new! It's the logo which is the main issue because there isn't a lot of leeway in the margin of error. You don't notice a few ingredients that are a few mm out but a symmetrical logo has to be spot on. That's where warping lacks finesse. I was hoping there was something out there that can handle subtle bulges that can be teased into nice tight curves.

[Flashtones]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

I may not be visualizing properly what your asking for, but one thing you might try is the pull-down menu on the left side of the options bar when doing a warp transform. You have Arc and Arch options, and by adjusting the positive/negative numbers in the Bend field you can get some pretty clean bends.

Subtle bulges? Like where you need to liquify a small segment to match up with the rest of a line? Are we talking vector art or bitmap?

[Repairman]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

Thanks FT. I've just had a play with the warp options which I had completely forgotten about. Not quite the solution but the symmetrical distortion will help me with the logo and texts which I can strip in to the illustrative components. Imagine wrapping text around a coffee cup. The point nearest to you changes very little but soon increases exponentially as the text disappears around the curve of the cup. It's getting that increasing tightening of the effect that creates the plausible effect. Spherize in the Distort menu (set to Horizontal) goes someway toward a solution but I'd like to find a more sophisticated tool.

[Flashtones]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

Cool, I'll have to play with Spherize.

Let us know if you find anything better.

[pixaeiro]

Re: Warping/distortion software search

This video shows how to do non destructive image deformation with a node graph image editor.