Wrap curve around sphere I couldn't find this anywhere, which is really strange, but I'm trying to wrap a curve, imported from a .svg made with a vector image program around a sphere to create the Earth.

Basically, this is what it currently looks like:



I'd like to wrap the curve of the outlines for the land around the sphere in the middle of the scene.

I don't mind converting the curve to mesh at some point in the process, but it will be beveled or extruded first.

I tried Lattice (which didn't work because I couldn't get a result that matched the sphere's shape), I tried Curve modifier with a circle curve but that only made the map cylinder-shaped, I tried Simple Deform, Shrinkwrap and Warp but couldn't get these to make what I wanted either.

When using Shift+W here's what happens:
Using the exact technique used by Leon Cheung in this answer: How to animate morphing a rectangular plane into a sphere.

Using two empties and two simple deform modifiers in bend mode.