Anamorphic Perspective in Illustrator or Photoshop?

Question

I'm trying to find a way to distort artwork to emulate those crazy chalk art pieces you see all the time, like this:

I know how it's done:

...but I'm wondering if there is an Illustrator or Photoshop plugin available to apply the distortion for me.

Currently, I do the distortions manually with Mesh Envelope, but it's tedious. There has to be an easier way. Any ideas?

EDIT: Here is one of the recent real life projects I did that used this sort of technique, but calculated manually, stair by stair:

Here is the desired view point:

And here is an off angle view point:

Answer 1

Here is a software-independent great step-by-step guide. It's done by Wooden Palette, and their site has all the details to make it happen (this is more of a summary to explain the basic principles behind anamorphic art.

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STEP 1:

Create a simple grid (or use an existing one).

_{(source: woodenpalette.com)}

STEP 2:

Create a perspective plane. You can use a copy of your existing grid, and flatten it. The amount of flattening will depend on the position of the supposed person looking at the drawing.

http://www.woodenpalette.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/grid_2.jpg

STEP 3:

Place your art on top of the grids.

http://www.woodenpalette.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/grid_3.jpg

STEP 4:

Stretch both your art and the flattened grid back to full height.

http://www.woodenpalette.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/grid_4.jpg

STEP 5:

Stretch the art and former flattened grid to full width. Your second grid and your first one should overlap perfectly. Voila! Your anamorphic art is ready to be applied!

http://www.woodenpalette.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/grid_5.jpg

Answer 2

Using a perspective grid in Illustrator should work.

1. Rotate your art 90 degrees counterclockwise
2. Access perspective grid
3. Place your image on the left side of the perspective grid and adjust the position as needed
4. Copy the distorted image
5. Turn of the perspective grid
6. Paste the distorted art
7. Rotate the distorted art 90 degrees clockwise