R – Tools for Flash-based image manipulation

actionscript-3flashimageusability

I'm building a Flash app (as3) that allows users to embed photos of themselves in a scene–think carnival-style cutouts (or faceInHole). I like the interface design for image manipulation at FaceInHole, which puts anchor points and a skeleton around the boundaries of the uploaded image and lets users drag the image to change its position, resize it by dragging corners, rotate it, etc, similar to the free transform tool in photoshop.

Originally, I was planning on building the application with an interface that just used buttons in a control console to manipulate things like position, rotation, etc, but I find the FaceInHole approach more intuitive.

I have two questions:

a) Will most users find the in-place skeletal manipulation tool more convenient than the button-based tool, or do I just find it easier because I'm used to things like Flash and Photoshop that use a similar interface?

b) Are you aware of any good open source classes / libraries that contain a solid implementation of the photoshop-style free-transform image manipulation interface?

Best Answer

I've done some research, and I've found two good as3 implementations:

Senocular has a nice free as3 transform tool.

Greensock has something similar that looks slightly more polished but costs $300.

Guess which one I'll be using?

Related Solutions

Android – Strange OutOfMemory issue while loading an image to a Bitmap object

To fix the OutOfMemory error, you should do something like this:

BitmapFactory.Options options = new BitmapFactory.Options();
options.inSampleSize = 8;
Bitmap preview_bitmap = BitmapFactory.decodeStream(is, null, options);

This inSampleSize option reduces memory consumption.

Here's a complete method. First it reads image size without decoding the content itself. Then it finds the best inSampleSize value, it should be a power of 2, and finally the image is decoded.

// Decodes image and scales it to reduce memory consumption
private Bitmap decodeFile(File f) {
    try {
        // Decode image size
        BitmapFactory.Options o = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        o.inJustDecodeBounds = true;
        BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, o);

        // The new size we want to scale to
        final int REQUIRED_SIZE=70;

        // Find the correct scale value. It should be the power of 2.
        int scale = 1;
        while(o.outWidth / scale / 2 >= REQUIRED_SIZE && 
              o.outHeight / scale / 2 >= REQUIRED_SIZE) {
            scale *= 2;
        }

        // Decode with inSampleSize
        BitmapFactory.Options o2 = new BitmapFactory.Options();
        o2.inSampleSize = scale;
        return BitmapFactory.decodeStream(new FileInputStream(f), null, o2);
    } catch (FileNotFoundException e) {}
    return null;
}

Html – When to use IMG vs. CSS background-image

Proper uses of IMG

Use IMG if you intend to have people print your page and you want the image to be included by default. —JayTee
Use IMG (with alt text) when the image has an important semantic meaning, such as a warning icon. This ensures that the meaning of the image can be communicated in all user-agents, including screen readers.

Pragmatic uses of IMG

Use IMG plus alt attribute if the image is part of the content such as a logo or diagram or person (real person, not stock photo people). —sanchothefat
Use IMG if you rely on browser scaling to render an image in proportion to text size.
Use IMG for multiple overlay images in IE6.
~~Use IMG with a z-index in order to stretch a background image to fill its entire window.~~
Note, this is no longer true with CSS3 background-size; see #6 below.
Using img instead of background-image can dramatically improve performance of animations over a background.

When to use CSS background-image

Use CSS background images if the image is not part of the content. —sanchothefat
Use CSS background images when doing image-replacement of text eg. paragraphs/headers. —sanchothefat
Use background-image if you intend to have people print your page and you do not want the image to be included by default. —JayTee
Use background-image if you need to improve download times, as with CSS sprites.
Use background-image if you need for only a portion of the image to be visible, as with CSS sprites.
Use background-image with background-size:cover in order to stretch a background image to fill its entire window.