We consider the problem of constructing quantum channels, if they exist, that transform a given set of quantum states $$\{\rho _1, \ldots , \rho _k\}$$ { ρ 1 , … , ρ k } to another such set $$\{\hat{\rho }_1, \ldots , \hat{\rho }_k\}$$ { ρ ^ 1 , … , ρ ^ k } . In other words, we must find a completely positive linear map, if it exists, that maps a given set of density matrices to another given set of density matrices, possibly of different dimension. Using the theory of completely positive linear maps, one can formulate the problem as an instance of a positive semidefinite feasibility problem with highly structured constraints. The nature of the constraints makes projection-based algorithms very appealing when the number of variables is huge and standard interior-point methods for semidefinite programming are not applicable. We provide empirical evidence to this effect. We moreover present heuristics for finding both high-rank and low-rank solutions. Our experiments are based on the method of alternating projections and the Douglas–Rachford reflection method.