Curve Bend help?

[Amy de l'ABC]

Hi everyone

I'm new here; have been trying for a couple days to get this to work properly, and I've finally given up and decided to ask for some help, haha.

Basically, I'm attempting to curve an image (not a path, just an image) along a path. Curve bend seems to me to be the way to go, but I'm having all sorts of trouble actually using it...mostly because the grid with the points in the dialog box is so TINY. Like...idk if it's meant to be so small, but the grid is like...an inch long maybe? And the mouse movements I have to make to adjust are absolutely infinitesimal. My hand-eye coordination isn't good enough for that! XD

Anyway...the ideal solution would be to be able to load the points data from an SVG or something, so I could edit my path in Inkscape. If there's no way to do that, are there alternatives that allow me to edit the points either like...with the arrow keys or something, or in another program, or even (as big a pain as it would probably be) in a text editor or something? Is Curve Bend even the best way to do this? Tbh I'm still finding GIMP a bit counterintuitive in a lot of ways, so I have a difficult time with it sometimes.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Oh, and so that you don't have to check my profile--OS is Windows 10, GIMP version is 2.10.20 (revision 1). 

[rich2005]

You might get it with the Cage Transform tool. Put in some guides to keep the control points in line.

Maybe like this. The control points were originally at the corners and along the top / bottom edge.

   

edit: another example using a path as a visual guide. https://i.imgur.com/ScWxQLh.jpg Increased the canvas size for a bit of working room.

[Ofnuts]

(09-20-2020, 10:23 AM)rich2005 Wrote: edit: another example using a path as a visual guide. https://i.imgur.com/ScWxQLh.jpg Increased the canvas size for a bit of working room.

Use View>Snap to active path and the path becomes an actual guide

[rich2005]

It does indeed, however not really applicable for the example.

Can you think of any other way of bending an image along a path other than the curve bend tool. Using Cage Deform as in the example is all 'by-eye' and OP finds the old curve-bend too small.

[Amy de l'ABC]

(09-20-2020, 10:23 AM)rich2005 Wrote: You might get it with the Cage Transform tool. Put in some guides to keep the control points in line.

Maybe like this.  The control points were originally at the corners and along the top / bottom edge.



edit: another example using a path as a visual guide. https://i.imgur.com/ScWxQLh.jpg Increased the canvas size for a bit of working room.

(09-20-2020, 01:10 PM)Ofnuts Wrote:

(09-20-2020, 10:23 AM)rich2005 Wrote: edit: another example using a path as a visual guide. https://i.imgur.com/ScWxQLh.jpg Increased the canvas size for a bit of working room.

Use View>Snap to active path and the path becomes an actual guide

Thanks for the ideas! I'm attempting the cage transform and ran into another issue. Well, two actually, #1 being that when I imported my path from Inkscape--I'm more comfortable with the path tools there--in GIMP, it wasn't made of like...8 or 9 points or whatever it was I had in Inkscape, but like...a ton of them. Like...I'm terrible at eyeballing but maybe at least 30. So that was annoying. But the bigger problem (I solved the first one by exporting a PNG from Inkscape instead of a path; if I'm not using it as a path, might as well just use an image instead) is that the cage transform is acting kinda wonky, and I'm not sure why. Like...



The red lines are from the PNG I got from Inkscape--figured that'd be a good way to have a guide. I highlighted the cage transform control points in blue. So like...I originally had them just everywhere the guides met the top and bottom of the lace (much like in the first example rich posted). Then I moved the one up, expecting the lace to go with it, and...yeah that didn't happen...no idea why...

Again, any help is appreciated!

[rich2005]

The Cage Transform is a really blunt-tool. It is all by eye, adjust to fit the path. There is as much pushing pixels as pulling. It does require space for the moved pixels. If your pattern is a thin strip, promote it to canvas size Layer -> Layer to Image size

If a simple circular arc is required you might get it with an old plugin   arclayer.py https://github.com/akkana/gimp-plugins/b...rclayer.py Apply that to a thin strip

   

otherwise don't know.