How can I warp/map one image to another? Help please.

Hi,

I wonder if anyone could suggest any software which will allow me to do the following:

I have a map, and I want to warp it to fit another shape of my choosing (in order to change the relative positions of locations on the map). For example, to see where the various cities in the USA would be if the USA was the shape and size of Australia. Or Japan. Or if it was circular.

Obviously I could use warp tools in Photoshop, but I need relative distances between points on the outline of the original map to remain consistent in the new image. With warping, the mapping wouldn't be consistent as the warp grid is of a limited resolution, and individual warping "pulls and pushes" can be quite localized, thus deforming the image inconsistently.

I thought of some "tween" function in Flash, but have never used such a thing so am not sure if this would be a viable method.

This is for an art project, but the final image doesn't have to be in high resolution, as I will be drawing it by hand afterwards. I just need to get the relative position of map locations correct.

Any advice, suggestions, or links to tutorials would be most appreciated.

Thanks in advance for your help.

A helpful person on another forum suggested the Mesh Warp in Illustrator.

The grid in Photoshop only has 9 squares, which is why I was referring to a lack of precision. It seems the Illustrator mesh grid has far more precision. I haven't used Illustrator much at all in the past other than for importing photographs and using Live Trace. But the Mesh Warp tool might be just the ticket here.

I also investigated the new Photoshop Puppet Warp tool in CS5, which is far superior to the standard warp options in Photoshop. It too looks like being a suitable way to tackle my challenge.

With any such project there are bound to be personal interpretations in the final image. What I'm aiming for with my mapping is to have all the squares in the mesh fairly evenly warped. I want to avoid some sections being massively distorted while others remain hardly changed. It certainly will be my own interpretation but hopefully at the end people looking at the new map will instinctively know where they can find places relative to each other.

Just saw your post and would have recommended Puppet Warp in Photoshop CS5