sorry nomuse, they were aimed at ockham, as he mentioned creating a flat mesh in a.DXF format from a .bmp image so i wondered if you then attached a displacement map to that mesh whether you could alter its appearance ie. turn it into a sphere.

am wondering now though if you have a barrel made with a cylinder and texture it from that cylinders uv map whether if you add a displacement map whether you could get it to bulge in the middle, but keep your ring lines straight?