It's probably too late, but what about just using an image map? You could create slices using photoshop or paint shop pro. It would be a little bit choppy to create, but not that bad, and should be seamless to users. The slices cannot be rotated as far as I know, so you would just need to create a row of boxes over each menu item. See the attached image for a sample of what I'm talking about. As long as there is no space between the different blocks, your users would not know the difference.