Is there a decent filter to make some sort of lens distortion for text ?

[Espermaschine]

I was thinking of something like that:
http://tinyurl.com/ztrg45o
(the logo in the middle).

Thats an effect from the late 90ies so shouldnt be too exotic.

I tried mapping text to a sphere, but Gimp's 'Map To Object' filter doesnt look good.
The 'Lens Distortion' is not extreme enough.
'Apply Lens' makes it all jaggy edged.
G'MIC doesnt seem to have the right filter...'Fisheye' distorts parts of the text too much in an ugly way.

I downloaded Mathmap, but im new to this filter pack, so i dont know.

[Ofnuts]

You won't get sharp text if you apply this kind of deformation to bitmaps. You have to work at the path level. I don't know any lens distortion filter for paths, but you could try some envelope distortion, either using SaullGoode's warped text or using Inkskape and the "envelope distortion" path effect.

As a last resort, if the text isn't too complex, use "Apply lens" and retrace a path from it, from which you regenerate clean text.

[Espermaschine]

Hm, right.
I could do that in Inkscape, but not with the Envelope Distortion LPE.
Theres a better way distorting individual letters with the Bezier Envelope plug-in.

[rich2005]

Had a trawl through MathMap with little success that example is very  curved.

Came to the same conclusion as ofnuts, saulgoodes warp text.

At the basic level.

   

[Espermaschine]

Nice one, rich !

EDIT: looking at the source image, it really looks like its mapped to a sphere, because there is also some perspective distortion going on.
Thats a bit more difficult to imitate with paths.
Will have to give it a try.

EDIT2:
so i made the base in Inkscape with the Perspective LPE and then some Bezier Envelope distortion and Node editing.
Imported into Gimp, done a lot of decoration and applied Lens Distortion on top, which really gave it the final warped look i was aimig for.

   

   

[sallyanne]

Nice 

[Espermaschine]

Can somebody tell me what a displacement map has to look like for a bulging effect ?

I was thinking a white radial gradient, but that doesnt displace the text equally to the outside direction.

[Ofnuts]

(11-03-2016, 03:46 PM)Espermaschine Wrote: Can somebody tell me what a displacement map has to look like for a bulging effect ?

I was thinking a white radial gradient, but that doesnt displace the text equally to the outside direction.

Been called for dinner, but the names of the layers in attached XCF should be enough...

[Espermaschine]

(11-03-2016, 07:42 PM)Ofnuts Wrote: names of the layers in attached XCF should be enough...

Mind blown.
Thank you !

Also quite interesting what happens when you reverse the maps !
First image: original grid.
Second image: bulged grid
Third image: reversed X/Y bulging map

   

[Ofnuts]

(11-03-2016, 08:10 PM)Espermaschine Wrote: Mind blown.

I've blown off a few neurones myself figuring that one out