ActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources

Posted November 2, 2005 12:02 pm
Filed under: ActionScript, Flash

Personally I ran into two big stumbling blocks as I was trying to get my head around the new bitmap manipulation capabilites in Flash 8, particularly the ones in the BitmapData class and the more “low-level” filters (like DisplacementMapFilter and ConvolutionFilter). First of all, I wasn’t sure exactly what the filters could be used for. What sorts of effects would you create using a convolution filter? When would I choose to use a displacement map? Second, there are a lot of concepts that you need to understand to work with bitmap data manipulation, and frankly I hadn’t had occasion to do that sort of programming before.

So, I dug in and started spending a lot of time studying these concepts and looking for inspiration. Through all of that I found lots of articles and sites that I felt were good resources. A word of warning — none of these sites talk specifically about how to implement the concepts or effects in ActionScript. Those that do provide code usually provide it in other languages, and several of them don’t give any code at all — they are sites that show examples of the type of effects that can be created using particular filters.

In summary, if you’re looking for an easy tutorial, this isn’t the list for you, but if you want to get a better grounding in the conceptual underpinnings and possible applications of the BitmapData and filters classes in Flash/ActionScript, here is a list of great resources:

Note: I have listed a source when the article was recommended by someone else; otherwise, the source is our friend Google.

Graphics programming concepts

Blending modes

Perlin noise

Convolution

Displacement Map

Color Transformation

BitmapData - specific effects

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  1. March 6th, 2006 at 7:33 pm
    in2mind is reported to have said:

    links from Technorati ActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources, a bunch of Words, punctuated - by Paul Robertson (http://probertson.com/)ActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources- by Paul Robertson (http://probertson.com/) Add comment December 17th, 2005

  2. March 28th, 2006 at 5:51 pm
    Unfit For Print is reported to have said:

    links from Technorati Distractions Chris Bliss: Must-See Finale Beyond The Type � Using the Basecamp API with Ruby on Rails Mongrel: LighttpdActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources, a bunch of Words, punctuated - by Paul Robertson (http://probertson.com/) Free Touch Typing Program

  3. August 9th, 2006 at 10:19 am
    lessrain blog is reported to have said:

    links from Technorati Flash Technotes ActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources AS optimizations DR ericlin FlashExtensions Moxiecode Real-time deinterlacing best-practice Regexp in flash 8 Tonypa URL Encoding Vectors For Flash

  4. June 7th, 2007 at 11:33 am
    plasmik is reported to have said:

    links from Technorati Flash Developer Center - Graphic effects Convolution matrix (Documentación GIMP) Understanding the Transformation Matrix in Flash 8 ColorMatrix (gskinner.com) Flash Graphic Effects Learning Guide Actionscript BitmapData and Filters resources Make screenshots, filter and output as jpg from Flash 8 ActionScript BitmapData and Filters resources The Water Effect Explained aM laboratory - filters Special Effects Perlin Noise Flash BitmapExporter: Compress and Save Images

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