Wrap Image Around Curved Surface And Reposition It?

Hello, I’m trying to apply a panoramic landscape photo to a curved surface/billboard to provide an accurate backdrop from a range of view angles for a house design I’m working on. When I apply the imported image as a texture and apply it to my curved surface, I do not have the ability to reposition it and the image not positioned correctly on the surface, it’s tiling. Any suggestions on how best to do this?

Here’s a screen shot showing the pano image on a flat surface and the curved surface with the image applied.

Thanks!

ValinHawK

SUPro 2017

After you’ve applied the material to the curved surface, you can expose the hidden geometry with View>Hidden Geometry. Then right click on the texture on one end face and reposition it. When you are satisfied, hide the hidden geometry again, get the Paint Bucket tool, hold Alt and sample the just moved texture. Release Alt and click on the curved surface.



It would be better if you make the texture so its height matches the height of your background scrim and import the texture to a rectangle with the same height and length as the scrim. Also align the rectangle with the scrim.

2 Likes

Thanks Dave. When I select Texture>Reposition, the handles in your images don’t show up. It has four white/black handles at each corner. When I use these to reposition the image on the surface, and then sample it, and select the inside of my curve, nothing changes on the inside but a bunch of little tiled images appear on the outside of the curve… I’m confused…

ValinHawK

Right click on the texture and choose Position. Right click on it again and choose Fixed Pins.

Okay, thanks. I see how to bring up the fixed pins now. Still, I moved the texture, sampled it, reapplied it to the curved surface and nothing changed on the inside but a bunch of little ones were tiled on the outside of the curved surface…

Did you turn off the hidden geometry before sampling the adjust section of the texture?

How about taking the easy route? Remove the texture altogether, position a rectangle that is the same size as the curved surface. That is, its height is the same as the height of the scrim and the length is the same as the length of one of the arcs. Position that rectangle in front of the scrim as in my last screen shot. with it centered in front of the scrim and level with it vertically. Import the image as a texture (File>Import) and apply it to the rectangle starting in its lower left corner and dragging out to the right end. Sample that texture with the eye dropper and apply it to the curved face with no hidden geometry showing.

I created a new flat panel and curved surface, imported the image onto the flat rectangle, sampled it, applied it to the curved surface, and I get hundreds of little images, that are the original size of the image when it came in before setting its size.

Sure appreciate you taking time to help me with this. I’m tempted to just create six flat billboards around the house with the pano image on them…

Copy the face and the curved scrim to a new file and upload it so I can see what you’ve done to it.

Okay thanks Dave! I finally followed your procedures correctly and was able to scale the image on the curved surface. Though, it has come in reversed from what was intended. How do I keep that from happening and/or fix it when it does? And, as you can see in the photo, I need to change the size of the curved billboard to get it to span 180 degrees of arc without tiling the image. I think I can figure that part out.

And, how do I get it to not tile on the outside of the curved billboard…?

I need to see the curved scrim and the rectangle to see what you’ve done.

Okay, tried but It’s too big to upload in the reply. I’m new to SU and this forum. Is there an option with the forum to upload SU files directly?

I’ll try striping everything but these elements out and uploading it. Will take a minute…

Did you copy the curved scrim and the rectangle with the texture to a new, blank file like I asked?

I did that and it’s 3.3 MB and the forum doesn’t allow files over 3 MB…

I’ll create a DropBox link…

Hopefully this works… Thanks Dave!

Alright. First problem to tackle. Remember I wrote:

Since your rectangle is considerable shorter than the arc, the texture is shorter, too. This means it will necessarily repeat across the scrim.

I edited the material so it’s about the same length as the arc.

Correcting the face orientation would fix the reversed image. Apply the material to white front faces. Apply it to the rectangle and position.

And then I painted the default material onto the back of the scrim.


Valin’s Curved Landscape Billboard Attempt.skp (1.9 MB)
Note, I resized the image file. There’s really no need for it to be over 11,000 pixels wide.

1 Like

Thanks Dave! I was able to successfully make the same changes you did to the model and think I understand the details now. Interesting how showing hidden geometries changes things and how front/back face of surfaces affects the texture mapping. Thanks again for taking the time to help me with this!

Valin

1 Like

Here’s an elevation view with the image on the background. Thanks again for your help Dave!

4 Likes

Nice job ValinHawK!!!