Using the techniques outlined in the answers to this and this questions, it's possible to map images as textures on the surface of a sphere or other object.
These questions, however, consider the case in which one wants to map a single image over the whole surface of a sphere. I am instead trying to plot different images at various points of the sphere.
A first attempt to do this is the following:
testImage[theta_, phi_] := Rasterize[ Framed@Text[ "\[Theta]=" <> StringTake[ToString@N@theta, UpTo@3] "\n\[Phi]=" <> StringTake[ToString@N@phi, UpTo@3]], RasterSize -> {60, 60}]; Show[ Graphics3D[{ Sphere[{0, 0, 0}, 19.9] }, Axes -> True], Table[ SphericalPlot3D[ 20, {u, theta - 0.1, theta + 0.1}, {v, phi - 0.1, phi + 0.1}, Mesh -> None, TextureCoordinateFunction -> ({#5, 1 - #4} &), PlotStyle -> Directive[Texture[testImage[theta, phi]]], Lighting -> "Neutral" ], {theta, Subdivide[0., Pi, 10]}, {phi, Subdivide[0., 2 Pi, 8]} ] ] which produces
This is sort of what I am trying to achieve. However, there is the problem that the spherical coordinates distort the images the more they approach the poles.
I want instead to plot the images without any distortion around any given angle $(\theta,\phi)$. Clearly, if the list of images were the same as in this example we would get overlapping images, but that is not really a concern for my actual use case. I am also not concerned about the orientation of any single image, so one can assume that the images have rotational symmetry around their centres.
How can I do this?
