Hey guys I'm a bit stuck on this one and need some help!

I've got a bunch of points that represent places on the earth, they are lat long coordinates, which I've interpreted as x and z positions for the points.

This produces good results on a flat grid, I could say render out the points then use that as a texture map onto a sphere with polar coordinates.

However I want some geometry protruding out of the sphere (earth) based on those point positions.

So I need to somehow wrap those points around a sphere like a polar texture map.

At the moment I can (not very precisely) use ray to project them onto the sphere but this only works for one section, not the whole sphere.

Creep SOP is your friend here.

hi ,

this is not so houdinistic , but maybe you can start by moving the whole 2d thing ‘Radius’ far from center . then apply a Bend SOP to create a cylinder . then try to strech ( toward earths poles axis ) using a falloff which doesnt affect the ‘ecuatorial’ points , but merges the ‘polar’ ones , while reproducing the spherical shape .

if that fails , you can use another way ; something i call ‘inverse-uvnggineering’ .
i need to be infront of houdini to try this since from my mobile device , Everything seems Possible . . but .. ill try .

Thanks for the replies. The creep SOP worked perfectly, thanks!

–inverse-UVngineering method

might look overloaded , but is pretty simple indeed .

most of the nodes are for visualization purposes ( grey ones ).

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