shockwave or some other wave?

[Aronduby]

my first thought is using wave world, which creates B&W wave ripple pattern, as a displacement map. If you go that route don’t forget to precomp the solid layer you applied the plug-in to with “move all attributes” since AFX can’t use effects for displacement.

[Eran Solomon]

i tried to pre-compose the solid with wave world applied to it
then use Displacement map on the upper layer and telling to use the pre-composed wave world solid as distort.. but nothing happends ?

[Derrick]

I have no idea if this would work, but here it is anyway:

Create a small emitting radio wave (white on black) with a short life so that it fades out while not to big.

then follow the instructions of Dan Ebberts to create a trail of these:

https://www.motionscript.com/mastering-expressions/follow-the-leader.html

And animate along the Z-Axiz?

Add a fast blur to create a nice smooth displacement map

Precompose that layer,

and add a displacement map effect to your image you want to displace using the comp you precomped as the map?

Wild guess here, and have not tried it,

Derrick