Tag Archives: flash platform

Adobe AIR, Acrobat 3D, Cocomo and a Wiimote

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Update: Just got a note from Fab (I couldn’t rememeber his name or the name of the application). You can check out his blog – http://www.lafabrick.com/blog/ – and learn more about the application called Twiidee (love that name). Thanks, Fab!

In MAX Milan I got to see some of the coolest stuff being done on the Flash Platform. I think MAX Milan actually had cooler stuff than MAX San Francisco. I’ve got a couple of videos but the first round is a demo of someone who created a collaborative 3D modeling application which uses a Wiimote as the input device.

They’re using WiiFlash by Adobe’s own Thibault Imbert to create the connection between the Wii and Adobe AIR. Once in the AIR application they created a drag and drop application that uses either Acrobat 3D or Papervision to render the 3D models. As Doug shows below, you can use the Wiimote to manipulate and rotate the 3D model. But the best part is the collaboration aspect. After seeing the Cocomo keynote on day 1, they went back to the hotel room and implemented collaboration with the Cocomo SDK. They set it up so that any number of clients can connect to the server and get the real time view of the 3D model as the Wiimote moves it around. It’s a really cool use of some of the most exciting stuff in the Flash Platform. Enjoy the videos.

The Flex Builder “Identity Crisis” and the Flash Platform

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Lee Brimelow left a comment over on Keith Peter’s blog about Flex Builder. That spawned a pretty well read post over on calm in the chaos (great name). As someone that has been doing Flex development since the 1.5 days, here’s what I’ll tell you.

One, Flex is a great brand. I love the Flex brand. It’s not going away and in fact we want the community to embrace that brand. Things like the Flex Show and 360 Flex should show that we really support the community using the Flex brand. But anyone that has done Flex development over the past 5 years knows that there’s been some confusion over the kinds of apps that you’re building. Flex apps? Flash apps? They use the Flex Framework but they still run on the Flash Player. Even though you may not have used Flash Professional to build them.

So here’s the deal. The Flash Platform is going to be all encompassing. It doesn’t matter if you’re using Flex exclusively or Flash Professional exclusively – we’re all building Flash applications. Everything we create ultimately compiles down to the SWF format. That’s the Flash Platform. And Adobe has a ton of tools that target the Flash platform. We’ve got Flash Professional, we’ve got Flash Catalyst, we’ve got Flex Builder, we’ve got ancillary projects like Alchemy. Imagine all of those tools working seamlessly together. Wouldn’t it be great if everyone had one single brand of tools to use to target the platform? Wouldn’t that help clear up some of the confusion in the community? And the think about the strength of that brand for developers as we move into the mobile space. Ultimately I think this helps bring together everyone that’s building anything on the Flash Platform.

The Flash Platform (again) and Hello Flash Catalyst

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Gotta love the press cycle. Even though the keynote isn’t for another couple of hours, we’re going to be announcing the Flash Platform. Those of you who have been with us since the beginning may have a feeling of deja vu. You aren’t alone. Yes we’ve talked about the Flash Platform before. This time I think it’s more meaningful. One, we’re bringing all of the tools together under a single brand – which is going to help the confusion that comes with Flex versus Flash. Flex remains a great brand and it’s the face of our open source framework, but aligning the tools under one brand is going to help bring everyone that creates SWF content together.

And that’s why I’m excited and glad that “Thermo” is becoming a part of the Flash brand under the name Flash Catalyst. It bridges both worlds – the Flex world and the Flash world – into one tool. It connects our Creative Suite 4 tools with our developer tools. And that’s significant. As someone who’s been doing Flex for a long time, I can tell you that Flash Catalyst will completely change the way you think about building Flex applications. Part of it is great design-develop workflow but it’s also the fact that Flash Catalyst works very closely with the CS4 design tools. You get the development power of the Flex Framework, the design power of the CS4 tools, and the deployment/interactive power of the Flash platform. That’s a big deal.

Also, 64-bit Flash Player for Linux. Boo-yeah. Go Adobe. Go MAX.