I was on vacation for a couple of weeks, but I am back.

Continuing from my last example Flex 3 Example: Drawing a path at run time with adding and deleting points capabilities, I expanded the code to allow creating polygons at run time.

To create a polygon, the previous code was enhanced with graphics.endFill(); on the RedrawPath method.

I had to include additional methods to finish the polygons, as well as a method to create the last insert anchor point when finishing a polygon and more.

Below is the application to play with. To start, click on the “Add Polygon” button and then click on the stage to add points. At any time you can move any anchor (even as you are creating a polygon) to edit your polygon or any insert anchor point (light red dots) to insert additional anchor points. To end drawing a polygon click the “END” key.

Once a polygon is created in can be fully edited. Anchor points can be moved, inserted and deleted. The code is fully commented and thus I don’t go into explaining how it works in here. If you have questions post them via comments.

Get the code here.

Expanding on my last example, Flex 3 Experiment: Drawing a path at run time with insert points, here is the same example, but in this version it is possible to delete anchor points by clicking on a black point and then hitiing the DELETE key.

Although in this example and in the previous two, the title suggests is a Flex example, all the path functionality is in a AS file, so it can be run as an Actionscript project as well. It requires Flex 3.2+, Flash CS4 or other IDE that can compile for Flash Player 10.

In this case I called this a Flex example and not an experiment, because these are not really experiments ( i am not trying to do anything new really – at least not yet).

The code is available here.

It has been a while since my last post. I Have tons of experiments and ideas to post, but I guess I procrastinate too much.

Anyway, a couple days ago a got the book: “Foundation ActionScript 3.0 Image Effects” by Todd Yard and its great. I just finished Chapter 1, but I have so many ideas to play with that I guess it will take a while to finish the book (I sort of browsed the whole thing already though).

One of the descriptions in Chapter 1, which deals with AS3 Drawing API is about changing points in a path.You can see the example below. Click on the canvas (anywher), then click somewhere else, etc.  At any time  you can drag the points to edit the path.

Another example refers to drawing curves. In this case a curve is drawn of the stage, but the user can change the start and end point and the control point.  You can play with the curve below.

Then, I decided to make some changes and make something like the changing points in a path, but with the path made of curves. The result is shown below. Again, click on the stage a couple of times to draw some stuff. Now besides been able to move the points, you can move the control points (in light red).  The source code is available here

Enjoy.

Following my post from yesterday about augmented reality, what better than to link to experiments made by Seb Lee-Delisle with PV3D and FLARToolkit.

The followng video shows the awesome concept…

Papervision3D augmented reality wormhole from Plug-in Media on Vimeo

Enjoy!!

A few weeks ago I saw a post on the PaperVision3D list about augmented reality using a 3D instantiated using PaperVision3D. I didn’t know what to expect, but I follow the link to check it out. The post at Sander Wichers blog, shows a nice combination of a 3D cube (made with PV3D) that can be manipulated in the real world. Sander uses a Mammoth media server (in alpha) and an augmented reality library named ARToolKitPlus as a server plug-in.

A couple of days later a saw another experiment using also PV3D and FLARToolkit a Flash implementation of ARToolkit (is in Japanese) made by Sagoosha. 

Papervision – Augmented Reality (extended) from dpinteractive on Vimeo.

I found some other interesting work on augmented reality by a French company called Total Inmmersion, that specialized on this (commercially). They have presented at the DEMO conference in 2004 and 2007. The following video is from their 2007 presentation

[wp_youtube]g8Eycccww6k[/wp_youtube]

You can access the DEMO 2004 presentation at: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6523761027552517909

A few days ago, via the Papervision3D blog (again), I found that Sagoosha published even a cooler demo to wish all of us a Happy New Year.

[wp_youtube]TW6_X9qBeds[/wp_youtube]

And you can even interact with this one by going here. Enjoy!!

Today I went to monthly meeting of the BFPUG (Boston Flash Platform User Group) to see a presentation about Gamebrix. Naveena Swamy, the founder of the company, showcased their platform, and it was a real threat.

I believe Gamebrix is up to something big. With their platform you can create games in 2 ways: One, by using the Gamebrix express, in which you can customize preexisting games or game templates by changing assets (graphics, audio, animations). The otherone by using the Gamebrix Builder. With the later you select your assets (graphics, animations, audio), either provided by the system or by importing your own. Then, you can add intelligence to your objects (again images or animations). By intelligence I mean interactivity – user actions (mouse clicks on the object), behaviors (how the objects react to events- i.e. to collisions), constraints and more. Finally you create the game, which is compiled on the server and produce a swf file (Flash file) that can be placed in any website or social networking site.

The platform has been built with Adobe Flex and its very easy to use. Once a user finishes creating a game, she can share it through the Gamebrix platform or post it in her own website. The game creator can easily edit games, change graphics, sounds and logic and quickly produce completely different games based on the same main storyline.

One cool idea is to use the platform to create contexts. A company can define certain rules, like use those graphics ( a logo, and some other branding elements) and use these themes to create games for that company in exchange for prizes and recognition. If you want to explore the potential of this for your own organization you may need to contact the company.

Right now the platform is in public beta testing and the access to create and share games is totally free of charge. We discussed a little about their business model, but not enough to be able to mention anything in here.

Well, what are you waiting for. Go there and create some cool games and share them with the world!!

Igor has posted a nice initial comparison of these applications that allow creating web-enabled desktop applications using Flash and Flex.

I have been using Zinc since it was known as Flash Studio Pro and I been able to develop some interesting applications. I thing the new version of Zinc opens new possibilities, but I like also the great potential that AIR provides.

In the Flex 3/AIR preview tour last week, Adobe showcased many cool capabilities both for Flex 3 and for AIR. Clearly, it’s an exciting time for RIA developers.

Last week I attended the monthly presentation at the Boston Flash Platform User Group (BFPUG) about physical computing using Flash CS3/Flex. Michelle Yaiser did a great job showing how to interface with several different pieces of hardware through Flash.

Basically, using a board from Making Things that can be connected to a PC via an USB port, a Flash application can exchange data with external sensors. This means the Flash app. can receive inputs from photocells, temperature sensors, potentiometers, bend sensors, etc, and send orders to servo motors and other devices. Pretty cool stuff.

In the past I have seen many demos related to physical computing with Flash, but I did not understand what was involved. Michelle explained the process explicitly.

After the meeting I started to explore the Making Things site to see what kind of things people are doing in this area. In their Projects page they list many exciting examples. One of the most attractive projects to me is the CandyFab 4000, – large – low cost – low resolution – 3D printer that uses sugar as the printing material.

They list many other innovative projects that could provide great ideas on how to use the computer to interact with the physical world. They have software interfaces for other programming languages besides Actionscript, but those are outside of my area of interest.

It seems I have to save some green to start playing around with these controllers and sensors. Probably my 11-year old Daniel would enjoy the journey even more than I.

Ryan Stuart, an Adobe Evangelist, has came up with his 10 RIA predictions for the year. Besides been an interesting read, I think he has some good points in there. RIA capabilities are improving rapidly because of the strong competition between Adobe and Microsoft. Adobe is very well positioned with the Flash platform and all the products in its portfolio, but Microsoft is a giant with a lot of followers in the development community.

At the end, the competition is good for the development community and for the end users. For the development community because we will have more tools – a better arsenal to produce great solutions, both for the web and for the desktop. For the end-users because, hopefully, there will be better and more efficient and effective web-based applications with improved UI design and navigation.

I believe in 2008 there will be a boom in visualization-collaboration applications. Ryan touches on those tow points in his predictions. I should add, that the integration “collaborative visualization” will be exploding as well. Currently there a few interesting web-based visualization applications like IBM Many Eyes created in Java and Gapminder, a Google product (acquired) made with Open Source Flash tools, and a few others. However, there collaborative capabilities are very basic, and they display visualizations from static data sources only.

Ryan did not mention any predictions about RIAs in mobile devices. I don’t know much about mobile devices, cell phones and PDAs, but I think there computational power, memory and storage capacity are reaching a point were they will be as powerful as basic computers and will be able to run Flash Player 9 and maybe Silverlight. Currently, only a handful of them support Flash Player 9, but I think this will change in 2008.

One thing is for sure, we have an exciting year a head of us…

I was reading this post at bit-101.com and I must agree with Keith. I mean, I was inspired by LineRider (check the domain name here and the Why the Name link), and I feel disappointed to see how complex they are making the game.

I think the reason it became some popular and viral in the first place, was because of its simplicity. With a minimalistic user interface and practically no learning curve it was really contagious. Although the learning curve was zero, the experience curve was huge. People could play for hours experimenting new ways to draw there paths.

I haven’t tried the latest version, but from what I have seen, it is now just like any commercial game. For me the enchantment is over.