Image manipulation in ActionScript 3.0 : realistically editing faces - actionscript-3

I am a flash developer who has worked mostly on small ActionScript projects, in particular websites, but I am dipping my toes into image manipulation with AS3. I have a project I'm working on to develop an application which would allow a user to upload their own picture into a swf, and then, using a slider, they can alter the image to make themselves look thinner or fatter. The condition is that it should require minimal user input - so ideally the most I could expect from the user would be a couple of control points identifying certain areas of the face in response to prompts e.g. 'click on the centre of the chin' and when the user clicks, the position would be stored, but this would need to be used sparingly, if at all.
So far, I have been able to use the FileReference class to handle the upload, and I am experimenting with using the DisplacementMap filter to edit certain parts of the uploaded image, but I am having serious trouble implementing this in a manner that would allow realistic deformation of the facial features in the image uploaded.
Is there anything that exists that might run along the same lines and that provides an explanation/source code I could look at to get a better idea of how to go around doing this? Or if there are any other ideas on how to manipulate and distort the image that doesn't use the DisplacementMap Filter?
Any feedback and help is greatly appreciated. Thank you for your time.

see http://sakri.net/technology/flash/flex/convolution_filter/ConvolutionFilterExplorer.html
(source code available)

Related

Is HTML rendering possible in libgdx (or, what is the best practice to create a help screen)?

I want to create a help screen for my game. This screen contains text and pictures that describe the game.
One option is to create a stage and add a table to it that will define the position of the different labels and images. However, this option seems to be "unnatural", limited when it comes to format options, and a potential headache when it comes to code maintenance.
The content of the screen is static which makes it a good candidate for an HTML document. My idea is to create the help screen document in HTML and then have it rendered inside my help screen. My question is, is this possible in libgdx? If not, what other way would I have to implement this?
As it is not possible to embed a browser in your LibGDX app (as nicely explained here), you could either link to an external website in the device's browser or use the libgdx-stagebuilder to build up the Scene2D stage using XML. Or you just stick to the normal LibGDX way. Unfortunately, I don't see any other option than those.
I don't think this is supported in libGDX as of yet, but it should be possible using platform specific code. How you do it will vary from platform to platform, so I can't tell you exactly what to look up, but android has something called webview you might want to look at.

How to get a car spinning with AS3? A 360 degree view

first post on here so be gentle!
I am currently designing an ad banner for my college assignment, the main feature i have is a car spinning, like a full 360 degree view.
Now I have took all of the media I needed and photoshopped them to how they need to look I just need some diction of where to go next.
I did want it where you can click and drag anywhere on the screen and it pulls the car around to where you want it, but I don't even know where to start with that! (please help if you can)
So I thought I would instead have it as a sort of image gallery with a next and previous button to select the next frame you want. But I don't like the way it looks so I was wondering if there was a way with action script where I could click on a button(next/previous) and the car would spin until I un-click? Rather than me having to keep clicking to load the next frame.
Also if I could I wanted a left to right scroll bar what could control the images, do you know any way of doing that?
Many Thanks in advance for ANY help!
Jordan.
If you want a commercial solution:
Krpano -> very advanced, excellent support, highly recommended for panoramas, 2D object is a bit lacking tho. Examples of 2D object
Object2VR -> very easy to use, not that great support, lacking API.
I would go personally for krpano because it is simply a superior tool. Great for panos, tons of possibilities. If you want it easy, go for Object2VR.
Now if you want to program it, and you need to program it, there are many options how you can do it. First of all, you need to load all the images into your app. Even if you don't maintain them in memory (that would be prefered, tho), you should load them so they are cached and can be reloaded fast. Your rotation can be achieved by "re-loading" the next image, or if you keep them in memory by simply referencing the next index of the array/vector. You always keep a reference index and upon click you simple increase the index and load the image. You than swap the images. It is too broad to explain, you will simply have to begin and ask for advice with some specific code.

HTML5 advice on drawings and images (canvas, SVG)

I'm looking into creating a website that allows people to create their own designs for a certain product. This product can have straight lines, curves, squares, and various shapes. I would not only like these people to be able to free hand draw their own artwork, but also be able to drag and drop (or just click in an area) certain stock images onto the template. I started this project using HTML/Canvas, and have implemented the drawing of freehand/shapes/lines, but I've read a few places that say I should be using SVG for the images.
Reading that I should use SVG for images made me think that since I'm a novice on HTML and website design in general, that I should possibly be doing this differently. So I was wondering how some people would implement this. For a good concept, think of a web site that people can design their own T-Shirts. You just draw on a square canvas, circles/squares/lines/free hand, but can also stick stock photos on there. Thanks, and I'm not looking for code, just to know if I should be using a mix of HTML/SVG/Canvas, or something completely different that I don't know about.
to summarize....
svg, or canvas.......or both, or something else completely.
Okay this is how i imagine you want it to work:
Your customers select a tshirt size and style.
An embedded application within your website allows the users to draw
a nice design they want or import an image
A price is calculated based on the size of the tshirt and the size
of the print
Upon succesful payment, you receive on your backend an image of the
print, the order details and you feed that image into your T-shirt
printing thingy, you print it and you post it.
If this is right you should consider this: http://svg-edit.googlecode.com/svn/branches/2.6/editor/svg-editor.html
You will probably want to remove some unnecessary tools from it and fire it up with different configurations based on what kind of tshirt the customer selected. One example is the t-shirt size. If a customer selects a small t-shirt you fire up a smaller drawing size. The list goes on.
You need to have some good JS skills however to be able to play around with SVG-edit because it is massive but from what i feel it fits perfectly to your purposes.
If you want to see the differences between SVG and Canvas read this: http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/svg-or-canvas-choosing-between-the-two/. Its pretty straightforward.
Now why did i suggest using SVG-edit? I don't know if there is any other application implemented using canvas that has so many tools and works so nice as SVG-edit.
It has everything you need, including a '''SAVE as PNG'' function which will serve your purposes in case your t-shirt printer doesn't print SVG images.

Depth map (2d+z) algorithm or software

I'm searching for Depth map algorithm for action scrip 3 (or some other language).
My goal is to generate depth map for static image on run time.
I have fount this example http://kode80.com/2009/06/29/papervision-zbuffer-and-dof/, i didn't have the time to investigate it's code but i have the filling its working only with 3d models.
Worst viable option is server side technology that does the work.
Extended description:
I have a task to develop flash application where 3d rotation of a head is simulated by a 2d image uploaded by the user.
There are some japan guys that have managed to do that (http://hairtry.jp/), but the technology that they are using is server side. It generates swf fail with precisely coped eyes and image for the depth map of the uploaded picture. I can't find out what is the sever side technology that they are using so I'm searching for any posible workarounds.
Thanks in advance.
Cheers,
Chavdar Slavov
your easiest solution would be to use a 3d engine, Paper vision seems to be getting out dated, theres a lot of documents on how to use, and tutorials but again not much has been happening with them lately. i suggest Away3d "www.away3d.com" they seem up to date.
for what your asking it is possible to do this 100% in flash but to create a 3d head at runtime and fill the face with hieght maps this is possible, you would need to look at bitmap manipulation.i dont think this is an easy task, what you should learn first is how to add an image to a spheric surface dynamically than look into height mapping by converting certain coulours from the image into different levels of depth i must say im sure this is advanced stuff, i manged to animate a globe that was this same method it looks dodgy but it gives you some source code in the FLA
http://www.ffiles.com/flash/animations/globe_animation_3496.html
The above link will allow you to download my source files, the animation it self is a scrolling image but i used Actionscript to give the globe depth and a sheric look

The best way to have an interactive flowchart inside a webpage?

Some of my users will be creating flowcharts..The idea is that at certain steps, the charts will allow the user to click on the text to go to another chart, or a manual or something.
My task will be to get these charts online.
The idea of hand coding these inside HTML seems crazy, so I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions?
Ideally, I would allow the users a tool to design the charts how they wish, and they could export it to something I could import into my page...They could either create linkable content inside the software, or if the html generated was neat enough I could do this bit myself.
Has anyone else come across a problem like this?
I've used Graphviz (link) to create flowcharts in HTML (an example of usage in real world: google wave used it to draw flowcharts in the waves). In the generated flowchart you can include links associated with nodes, edges, titles, etc. When a user clicks on a link, your software can re-render an image with the data of the new flowchart. Can be exported to png, svg, etc so is kind of easy to include it.