Towards the Next Generation of 3D Visualization: Airtight Interactive reviews a couple alternatives to Flash, specifically for 3D Visualization, Processing and vvvv. With links to some amazing work being done by Flight 404 and Lennyjpg.
FlashDevelop 3.0.0 Beta6 has been released. This free application is a fantastic Actionscript code editor and project manager. I’ve been using it for about a year and I really enjoy it now using AS3 with all the great code hinting features.
This version adds a great new Code Generation feature, basically, Write a regular addEventListener call, move your cursor on the (missing) handler’s name and press Ctrl+Shift+1 to generate the event handler.
Yahoo Maps has released a new API using Actionscript 3. The Maps API contains a core set of widgets, markers, overlays and web services to enable you to interact with the map in every way.
All the examples are built using Flex, but I’m not sure if the Flex Library is required to publish. I’ll find out when I give it a whirl.
Screencast and additional Map API info.
Update: I just fond this great information on how to use this API in CS3, without Flex (a hack, but they say CS3 support is coming soon):
How to use the Yahoo! AS3 Maps API in Flash CS3
Visualizing: tracing an aesthetics of data is a great overview from the recent Visualizar workshop focused on presenting data and numbers visually. Lots of fantastic information visualization example and info.
ProximityManager for AS3 is a new class released by Grant Skinner who has recently updated it from his AS2 version. This is a great resource for graphing data or creating an interface based on proximity. Looking forward to playing with this one.
Flare Visualization Toolkit is a collection of ActionScript 3 classes for building a wide variety of interactive visualizations. The Demo page shows off some very interesting interactive graphing effects, I especially like the Distortion > Fisheye XY demo. Includes an API set up for Flex and documentation with tutorial.
gotoAndLearn() has been updated to Version 2 by it’s creator Lee Brimlow. This site is a fantastic reference full of video tutorials for anyone looking to learn or improve their Flash / Actionscript / AIR skills. There are many basic tutorials for a beginner and also more advanced topics on coding with AS3 and Papervision3D. The latest video is on creating a video player from scratch using AS3. I found it to be very informative to get Lee’s opinion and instruction on the topic.
BulkLoader for AS3 is a minimal library written in Actionscript 3 (AS3) that aims to make loading and managing complex loading requirements easier and faster. BulkLoader takes a more dynamic, less architecture heavy aproach. Few imports and making heavy use of AS3’s dynamic capabilities, BulkLoader has a one-liner feel that doesn’t get your way.
Google Code: http://code.google.com/p/bulk-loader/
ScaleBitmap : 9-slice bitmap class is a simple (AS3) class which allows you to resize dynamically any Bitmap (just like the MovieClip.scale9Grid feature)
Circos - visualizing the genome uses a circular composition of ideograms to mitigate the fact that some data, like combinations of intra- and inter-chromosomal relationships (alignments, duplications, assembly paired-ends, etc) are very difficult to organize when the underlying ideograms (or contigs) are arranged as lines.
