How to curve or bend an image in one dimension only?

[Hedgehog]

I want to take an existing image and "bend" or "curve" it along one dimension only. No three-dimensional distortion or warping - I'm not trying to make an image look like it's attached to a cylinder or cone or whatever. I'll attach a crude image displaying what I have in mind. In my example note that I want the x-axis values to be unchanged, and for only the y-axis values to be altered. Also, I want the distance of the blue line to the red line to remain consistent. Preferably the curvature would be as though it were an arc along the edge of a circle.

 

This seems like it would be a widely-needed feature but I have spent hours looking for some way to do this without success. Someone elsewhere suggested the Shape3d plugin but that seems to always introduce some distortion along the x-axis (unless I've overlooking something). GridWarp or WarpGrid (can't remember the exact name lol) almost works, but it introduces these little irregularities between the nodes that you drag - I need a neater final image. 

 

The fact that there seem to be solutions for more complicated tasks makes me think I may be overlooking something simple. Thanks for any advice!

[Pixey]

Hi @Hedgehog and welcome to the forum

 

Perhaps try this Plugin Image Distortion.

 

I used it to come up with this:

 

[Hedgehog]

Thanks Pixey! This will definitely work for my purposes!

 

For the edification of anybody reading this in the future who needs a similar solution I would note that the curvature performed by the Image Distortion plugin appears to follow a parabolic curve, rather than a circular one. I needed only a shallow bending, so the difference was minimal, but it could become noticeable if you're really stretching the image a long way.