3d mockups in Illustrator CS3 - help!

[unclecurio]

Hoping someone can help out with this! I'm trying to mock up a display stand in Illustrator CS3.

I've got the flat artwork and have made an outline of the display stand (a 3x3 curved number like this) - so far so good!

My problem is that when I extrude the outline and map the image onto it, it seems to 'bunch' up the image in the spots where the curve of the shape is tighter rather than applying it evenly around the shape.

If I try adding extra anchor points to the shape to trick it into having a more even spread of vertices, something goes weirdly wrong and the mapping gets all warped.

Can anyone help out? I've got Blender to hand just in case - although I've never used it and don't really have the time to get to grips with it as artwork needs submitted by COB - eek!

Thanks for reading!

 

[NeedForBleed]

I might have mentioned something before using the same method. But as an alternative, if you place your image on a layer underneath the 3x3 popup layer, and then highlight both layers. Then click object/ envelope distort/make with top object. The image should take the shape of the popup, but you will incur some distortion due to the image being flattened, but you should get a half decent result.