AS3 - Convert String to Bitmap - actionscript-3

Question

I'm trying to store my images on a server to lighten the load of my SWF file. I've spent all day trying to get the data from the server, but all I get is a seemingly random string (which I understand is the string value of my image). I've tried reading up on this, but I haven't found anything that actually works, I get a lot of references to Base 64 encoding/decoding and I've tried a couple of libraries but they do nothing. Here's what I have (I've simplified it a bit to upload it):
public function loadImage() : void {
var url:String='example.com/some_image';
var load:URLLoader=new URLLoader(new URLRequest(url));
load.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoadComplete);
}
public function onLoadComplete(event : Event) : void {
var imgString:String=event.target.data;
}
But how do I convert imgString to a Bitmap or Sprite so I can addChild() it? I've tried imgString as Bitmap which returns null. Maybe it has something to do with the BitmapData class? This post seems similar but is unanswered.

Answer 1

If you have a server that runs PHP, you can generate the image first, e.g.
// PHP script 'http://yoursite.com/image.php
header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
echo $myImageDataFromDB; // Get the image data from MySQL.
And then in ActionScript, use the standard process to load that as an image:
var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://yoursite.com/image.php");
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(request);
addChild(loader);