Display an image wrapped around a sphere with CSS/Javascript

Question

I am aware that this is possible with three.js but it seems that three.js maxes a mesh sphere and the image gets a bit distorted. I'd also rather just use CSS if possible.

Is this something that can be done with CSS transforms? Ideally I'd like to animate it going from a flat image to a sphere so something that can easily be animated with CSS transitions would be great.

Korns

Answer 1

I found a nice example of how to do this with CSS on codepen: http://codepen.io/donovanh/pen/GBIiv. It doesn't actually wrap the image in 3d but it looks nice enough for my purposes.

Here is the relevant html/css:

<section class="stage">
  <figure class="ball"><span class="shadow"></span></figure>
</section>

.ball {
  display: inline-block;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  margin: 0;
  border-radius: 50%;
  position: relative;
  -webkit-transform-style: preserve-3d;
  background: url('https://alxgroup.net/gto-range-builder/images/treeSS.png') repeat-x;
  background-size: auto 100%;
  -webkit-animation: move-map 30s infinite linear;
  -moz-animation: move-map 30s infinite linear;
  -o-animation: move-map 30s infinite linear;
  -ms-animation: move-map 30s infinite linear;
  animation: move-map 30s infinite linear;
}

.ball:before {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  top: 0%;
  left: 0%;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  border-radius: 50%;
  box-shadow: -40px 10px 70px 10px rgba(0,0,0,0.5) inset;
  z-index: 2;
}

.ball:after {
  content: "";
  position: absolute;
  border-radius: 50%;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  top: 0;
  left: 0;
  -webkit-filter: blur(0);
  opacity: 0.3;
  background: radial-gradient(circle at 50% 80%, #81e8f6, #76deef 10%, #055194 66%, #062745 100%);
}

.ball .shadow {
  position: absolute;
  width: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  background: radial-gradient(circle at 50% 50%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.4), rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.1) 40%, rgba(0, 0, 0, 0) 50%);
  -webkit-transform: rotateX(90deg) translateZ(-150px);
  -moz-transform: rotateX(90deg) translateZ(-150px);
  -ms-transform: rotateX(90deg) translateZ(-150px);
  -o-transform: rotateX(90deg) translateZ(-150px);
  transform: rotateX(90deg) translateZ(-150px);
  z-index: -1;
}
body {
  width: 300px;
  margin: 20px auto;
  background: linear-gradient(to bottom, rgba(100, 100, 100, 0.2) 0%, rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.5) 40%, #ffffff 100%);
  background-repeat: no-repeat;
}

.stage {
  width: 300px;
  height: 300px;
  display: inline-block;
  margin: 20px;
  -webkit-perspective: 1200px;
  -moz-perspective: 1200px;
  -ms-perspective: 1200px;
  -o-perspective: 1200px;
  perspective: 1200px;
  -webkit-perspective-origin: 50% 50%;
  -moz-perspective-origin: 50% 50%;
  -ms-perspective-origin: 50% 50%;
  -o-perspective-origin: 50% 50%;
  perspective-origin: 50% 50%;
}

@-moz-keyframes move-map {
  0% {
    background-position: -849px 0; }

  100% {
    background-position: 0 0; } }

@-webkit-keyframes move-map {
  0% {
    background-position: 0 0; }
  100% {
    background-position: -849px 0; }
}


@-o-keyframes move-map {
  0% {
    background-position: -849px 0; }

  100% {
    background-position: 0 0; } }

@-ms-keyframes move-map {
  0% {
    background-position: -849px 0; }

  100% {
    background-position: 0 0; } }

@keyframes move-map {
  0% {
    background-position: -849px 0; }

  100% {
    background-position: 0 0; } }

Korns