Zooming and translate in as3 AIR Android - actionscript-3

Question

I am developing an android app with Adobe Flash cs6 and actionscript3. I have multiple moviclips at various locations on stage. Now I need to add a zoom feature that will zoom all movieclips as one movieclip. I cannot combine all movieclips together into one movieclip. My zoom feature works but it does not translate the movieclips to a new position. (Meaning they zoom at their original positions only) How can I accomplish this? Following is my zooming code :
/* ZOOM FEATURE */
Multitouch.inputMode = MultitouchInputMode.GESTURE;
zoomer.addEventListener(TransformGestureEvent.GESTURE_ZOOM , onZoom);
function onZoom (e:TransformGestureEvent):void{
mc1.scaleX *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
mc1.scaleY *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
mc2.scaleX *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
mc2.scaleY *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
mc3.scaleX *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
mc3.scaleY *= (e.scaleX+e.scaleY)/2;
}

Answer 1

Not the cleanest code I've written, but it should do the trick. scaleInPlace() accepts 4 arguments, 2 required, two optional:
obj: the display object you want to scale
scaleFactor: just as it sounds, how big/small do you want it?
fromX: the X coordinate where you want to scale from. Left, middle, right? If omitted, it operates from the middle of the compiled stage size.
fromY: same as the previous, but for top, middle, bottom.
This will preserve your DisplayList hierarchy while allowing you to scale to your heart's desire. If you had a lot of objects to scale, I'd probably parent all of them to the container first, and then run the scale and reparenting operations. While it works, this is the reason I feel it's not the "cleanest" solution. In my own classes, I've written a purely mathematical solution that doesn't include adding/removing DisplayObjects, but it's fairly tied up in my own classes I couldn't pull it out here and have it work.
Cheers!
// Let's scale myObject to 50% of its original size.
scaleInPlace(myObject, 0.5);
function scaleInPlace(obj:DisplayObject, scaleFactor:Number, fromX:Number = NaN, fromY:Number = NaN):void {
// If no coordinates from where to scale the image are provided, start at the middle of the screen
if (isNaN(fromX)) { fromX = loaderInfo.width/2; }
if (isNaN(fromY)) { fromY = loaderInfo.height/2; }
var father:DisplayObjectContainer = obj.parent;
var rect:Rectangle; // Coordinates for tracking our object
var index:int = getChildIndex(obj) // Where this object should go when we put it back
// Create the container
var container:Sprite = new Sprite();
father.addChild(container);
// Place the origin of the scale operation
container.x = fromX;
container.y = fromY;
// Get the coordinates of our object relative to our container
rect = obj.getRect(container);
// Parent and move into place
container.addChild(obj);
obj.x = rect.x;
obj.y = rect.y;
// Scale
container.scaleX = container.scaleY = scaleFactor;
// Get the coordinates and size of our scaled object relative to our father
rect = obj.getRect(father);
// Cleanup the display list
father.addChildAt(obj, index);
father.removeChild(container)
// Apply the new coordinates and size
obj.x = rect.x;
obj.y = rect.y;
obj.width = rect.width;
obj.height = rect.height;
}