circumference distortion formula

[scott pagan]

i have a customer needing to letter a watertower and it has a 3 lines of bold text. i am worrying that cut/application should be distorted so that the top and bottom lines of text will lay visually correct when the job is completed.

my thinking is the top and bottom should arc away from center so it will lay properly, but don't know how i should 'do the math'.

does anyone have any good tips for how to compensate for circumference when designing for a round object? think of a huge ball/helmet/etc.

thanks

 

[John Butto]

Cut a piece of paper 3"x8.5" with a pencil, print the letters on it, now roll the paper as the water tower. Do you see a distortion.

 

[James Burke]

There are companies that specialize in water tower lettering. Four years ago, I worked on a project with a third party that does this very thing. Let me see if I can track down their info.

BTW...the exact term you're looking for is "spherical radius".

This isn't the one we worked with, but perhaps they can help: http://www.mkpaintinginc.com/projects.htm


JB

 

[scott pagan]

thanks for the quick replies.

this tower is a ball/globe rather than a simple flat (can) shape.

 

[James Burke]

thanks for the quick replies.

this tower is a ball/globe rather than a simple flat (can) shape.

Spherical = ball shaped
Cylindrical = can shaped



JB

 

[J Hill Designs]

you are going to have to use something like this, and distort your graphics until they are straight with the longitude (or latitude..whatever, the vertical ones) lines

 

[MikePro]

they must have engineered drawings of this tower that you can use?
no simple formula will really help, as the tower is most likely not a perfect sphere.