Gimp (?) question.

[Michael Costolo]

--- "Lee D. Rothstein" <lee at veritech.com> wrote:
> Let's say you have a photo of a regular
> patterned fabric on a somewhat uneven
> surface, and you want to turn the image
> into something, uniformly planar for use
> as wallpaper. Or, a picture of a wall
> hanging that obviously appears
> trapezoidal.
> 
> Is there some semi-simple way to
> "straighten out" the image in Gimp? Is
> it even possible in Adobe Photo Shop?

The answer depends on how complicated your image is and your definition of
"semi-simple." There is the transform tool in The GIMP that allows for rotation,
scaling, shearing, and perspective transforms that may be of some help to you.  
 
> It seems to me that the transformation
> is 3D; that is, turning a 3D image into
> 2D? (Or, more precisely, a 2D image
> "convoluted" across a 3D surface.)

Your image is a 2-D projection of a 3-D surface.  If you knew the mathematical
representation of the 3-D surface, and had information about the projection, then
you could do it exactly.  However, this is not always practical and is probably far
from "semi-simple."

Perhaps you can crop a small regular area of the fabric pattern from your photo and
tile it to achieve the effect you are looking for?

-Mike-

=====
"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it"
-George Bernard Shaw

__________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
SBC Yahoo! DSL - Now only $29.95 per month!
http://sbc.yahoo.com