"Drape" text on globe with shapepar?

Question

Is it possible to "drape" text on a globe, with shapepar or some other package? The code that I am using is:

\usepackage{shapepar}
\usepackage{ulem}
\begin{document}
\Shapepar{\circleshape} \footnotesize{\rmfamily{\uline{blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah}}}\par
\end{document}

This yields the following figure:

Obviously, this does not come across as a 3d object. Ideally, I would like to have the string of words create the illusion of a globe, complete with curved latitude lines.

Would appreciate any help in this. Thanks.

Answer 1

I'm not going to do it all manually, but show this in hopes it will spur someone to automate it. Each letter is subjected to a horizontal and vertical scale, as well as a slant. I picked the values manually, but I see that, in theory, the first argument of \scalebox depends on the longitude, the optional argument to \scalebox depends on the latitude, while the optional \slantbox argument depends on latitude and longitude.

I am sure these trigonometric functions are analytically available in a variety of places for the orthographic projection (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_map_projections, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthographic_projection_in_cartography). The trick would be in mapping the (x,y) location of a given letter into a latitude and longitude and then applying the functional transformation of stretch and slant to reflect the value.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{shapepar}
\usepackage{ulem,graphicx,xcolor}
\newsavebox\foobox
\newcommand{\slantbox}[2][30]{%
        \mbox{%
        \global\sbox{\foobox}{\textcolor{red}{#2}}%
        \hskip\wd\foobox
        \pdfsave
        \pdfsetmatrix{1 0 #1 1}%
        \llap{\usebox{\foobox}}%
        \pdfrestore
}}
\begin{document}
\Shapepar{\circleshape} \footnotesize{\rmfamily{\uline{%
\slantbox[2]{\scalebox     {.6}[.5]{b}}%
  \slantbox[1.75]{\scalebox{.8}[.5]{l}}%
  \slantbox[1.33]{\scalebox{.95}[.5]{a}}%
  \slantbox[1]{\scalebox   {.95}[.5]{h}} 
\slantbox[-1]{\scalebox     {.95}[.5]{b}}%
  \slantbox[-1.33]{\scalebox{.95}[.5]{l}}%
  \slantbox[-1.75]{\scalebox{.8}[.5]{a}}%
  \slantbox[-2]{\scalebox   {.6}[.5]{h}} 
%%%%%%
\slantbox[1.8]{\scalebox  {.6}[.65]{b}}%
  \slantbox[1.6]{\scalebox{.7}[.65]{l}}%
  \slantbox[1.5]{\scalebox{.75}[.65]{a}}%
  \slantbox[1.4]{\scalebox{.82}[.65]{h}} 
\slantbox[1.0]{\scalebox  {.86}[.65]{b}}%
  \slantbox[0.8]{\scalebox{.90}[.65]{l}}%
  \slantbox[0.6]{\scalebox{.92}[.65]{a}}%
  \slantbox[0.4]{\scalebox{.94}[.65]{h}} 
blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah}}}\par
\end{document}