Sometime along the development of the application I came across the need to convert 3D coordinates into 2D screen coordinates and also the opposite. It's nothing new and it's already implemented in papervision, but since it took me a little while to find it, I decided to share it.

Getting the 2D Screen coordinates from a DisplayObject3D

Since papervision 2.0 that every DisplayObject3D has a property called "screen", that will return the coordinate of the object on screen. Whenever I tried to access the screen property the number3D I got back was always (0,0,0). Probably because it's an expensive operation and it's something you only need sporadically, papervision will not calculate this automatically. You need to ask papervision yourself to calculate this coordinates. To do so, just use the "calculateScreenCoords" of the do3d

myDisplayObject3D.calculateScreenCoords(camera)

Now when you try to access the "screen" property you will get the number3D with the screen coordinates for your DisplayObject3D.

Getting the 3D coordinates from a 2D point (x,y)

For this one I found a great post by zupko that tells you exactly what you need to do.
In a nutshell, you need to take your 2D coordinates (x,y) and convert them into a direction vector. Having the vector and the camera position you can create a ray (line) that will go from the camera into infinity. Next you need to specify the Z, or in another words, where do you want to stop on that line. Zupko uses a 3D plane to do that using the "getIntersectionLineNumbers"

Just remember papervision's 3D Zero (0,0,0) is at the center of the screen and not on the upper left corner like the 2D Zero (0,0)

A potential vulnerability has been identified in Adobe Flash Player 10.0.12.36 and earlier that could allow an attacker who successfully exploits this potential vulnerability to take control of the affected system. A malicious SWF must be loaded in Flash Player by the user for an attacker to exploit this potential vulnerability. Additional vulnerabilities have been addressed in this update. Adobe recommends users update to the most current version of Flash Player available for their platform.

More information about this security vulnerability is available at:

http://www.adobe.com/support/security/bulletins/apsb09-01.html

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We'll be sure to give it a go

pv3d_gallery_as3project

Example
Source Zip

To use root propriety the class that you are working on most extend a DisplayObject (Sprite,MovieCLip,etc…) because you have to add the class to the parent class. And note, you can’t use the root propriety in the constructor method, because the addChild haven’t been process yet! Well let’s stop writing and see some code:

Main.as

In the Main class I’m declaring a variable named myValue which I did the proper sets and get. I am declaring two classes, in one of them I will set the value at the Main class and in the other I will get that value back. I’m also creating a movieClip just for test purposes.

ExampleClass.as

In ExampleClass I’m setting myValue that is propriety of the Main class with some text and I’m tracing the movieClip that I create in the Main Class.

AnotherClass.as

In AnotherClass I’m tracing the myValue propriety. So the result should be:
[object MovieClip]
This value is inside the Main Class

So it works ok, you only have to be carefull not refer root inside the constructor method, have the certain that you already addChild the class when you are referring to root and that the class extends a display object. If you do that, you can too have access to stage propriety, let’s check the next example:

ExampleClass.as

The result should be or stage width.

Another way to access to main proprieties, methods, etc… is with static members. In the next example I’m declaring a static property in the main class and setting and trace the value of it in the example class.

Main.as

ExampleClass.as

The result should be “Hello Word!”, if you didn’t know this, read some books about object oriented programming and static members.

Another way to do the same thing is to pass the instance of main class as an argument to the other classes.

Main.as

Example.as

There are still another ways to access to the Main class code. I don’t know which techniques are more correct, I usually use them all depending in what I need. I hope I help someone.

Dreaming in Flash: Can you tell us a little more about yourself and your role on the team?

Alex Karpovich: I'm director of Alternativa company, and that means I'm basically responsible for everything here. I'm 29 years old, male, if you need that =)

Dreaming in Flash: What's the history behind Alternativa3D, how did it come to happen?

Alex Karpovich: We transformed from a very good web-studio. Main team just tired of making websites, it's getting boring after second hundred =)
We already had an experienced crew and big ambitions, then we united them with good idea and friendly venture capital. Flash was always our passion, but now it's combined with powerful server-side technologies here.

Dreaming in Flash: The web is thriving with 3D content these days, how do you see this evolving?

Alex Karpovich: Well, every technology is good in certain way, so I don't really think that all the web will go into 3D. But many many many projects will be able to create additional value by using 3D technologies in their websites. We'll also see 3D coming to mobile browsers, for sure.

Dreaming in Flash: What distinguishes Alternativa3D from the pack?

Alex Karpovich: We're commercially oriented, not-opensource-company (shoot me).
We have our own vision on creating better technology, and we're working full-time at our own office, which lets to really focus on our tasks.

Dreaming in Flash: What is your vision for 3D and the web?

Alex Karpovich: 3D is good for visualizating things, but not as good for delivering textual information, so we'll probably see browsers' rich media using 3D, but not that hackers-movie-like interfaces =)
Everyone seems exited, feeling that "we're almost there"... competitors know what I mean.

Dreaming in Flash: How will Flash Player 10, and Pixel Bender, affect Alternativa3D?

Alex Karpovich: It's getting faster with supported typed arrays and built-in perspective correction. We also like PixelBender, because it will let to create various FX and filters, as long as creating procedural textures may seriously redoce traffic, where it is important.
Still, there's a lot of desired features that are not implemented yet. We'll pray for Adobe to make them soon.

Dreaming in Flash: What are Alternativa3D plans for the future?

Alex Karpovich: We'll continue with 3D engine development (we have some serious features upcoming), along with AlternativaPlatform launch. We're starting our sells and dealing with a huge amount of enthusiastic people from many parts of the globe, and that is a very hard and interesting job.

Dreaming in Flash: I've recently read that you have partner studios, how does one become a partner?

Alex Karpovich: Well, you have to be experienced AS3 team to work with 3D engine, right? If so, drop us a letter with short self-description, and we'll see what we can do for you, that's it. A lot of people are looking for professional that can use Alternativa3D at their websites, so we're ready to share them. This process will get more standartized as long as we're getting more experience with partners.

Dreaming in Flash: Will it ever be opensource? Why?

Alex Karpovich: Not now. May be later, if we'll see that we really need that (read: if we'll understand that it's better for the project). Opensource is really good for some reasons, but we'd like to have full process control for now - we have some long-term plans on this software =)

Dreaming in Flash: And to end, what's your secret to achieve such speed and quality in your demos?

Alex Karpovich: Magic, definitely. Think of hardcore gurus with red eyes, scientists in glasses conducting strange experiments at night, colored smoke around the lab, and silent men in black suits with silver suitcases in hands =)

So here's my final day's reviews:

Rob on Away3D: It started with a little background on the platform and some early demos that described the problems that Away3D had to solve, and why they started  it in the first place, with stuff like Triangle Caching allowing some of the demos to have over 100 000 polygons on screen and still maintain quite acceptable frame rates! The he showed us a few amazing demos of current usage of Away3D including a RPG called Dragon Wars that was mind-blowing, overall very cool presentation.

Nicolas Lierman on AIR Analytics: This presentation focused on showing all that data that we collect from our sites and applications in meaningful ways and gave us a little technical and personal background on the AIR Analytics application.

André Michelle Make some noise: As always with André the presentation was energetic and ended with a rave, but this year he gave us a big technical insight on how the achieves his results.

Koen de Weggheleire - This was one of the coolest sessions in FOTB, Koen talked about Matrices and how they work, and i finally got it!

Mario Klingemann: What can I really say about Mario's session, it was impressive to say the least, this time he focused heavily on the concept part of manipulating pixels, and by not going into code he managed to provide us with the how he does it.

Jonathan Harris: I had seen Jonathan before at a TED talk, online that is, and was blown away when I found that he'd be at FOTB '08. He went through his life experience explaining each endeavor and showing us amazing examples, that you just can't help but to fall in love with.
To close his session he delivered a speech to the community about how he feels us, an eye opener!

And to finalize I won a FOTB 08 Jacket and that's just cool!

It was amazing as always, living up to the Hype and there's a lot of it! And I hope to you guys here next year!

FOTB 08 Day #2

Ok so here we are at day #2 of FOTB '08 and today was inspiring to say the least, I chose to go a bit more on the inspiring side and less on the technical part and it paid off brilliantly. This is clearly one of the areas I feel myself lacking and I feel like I've learned quite alot!

Mike Downey on AIR - Mike's session about how to pitch and sell AIR applications was an eye opener and consolidated a lot of concepts I already had.
He told us about the Lighthouse project that is meant to give out a hand to developers, and companies, in pitching AIR applications and they might even help you prototype it! Also he spoke about the AIR marketplace and how it can boost your app, good stuff!

Adobe Townhall Meeting - So every year the Adobe teams comes together and answers our questions. There were plenty of questions this year but I'll leave you with the most exciting answers: Flash is coming to the iPhone!!! And AIR is coming to mobile!

Jam Session - This was one of the coolest sessions in the conference, with André Michelle, Carlos Ulloa, Ralph Hauwert, Mario Klingemann, Joa Ebert where they showed off amazing stuff they've been working on, I'll try and refer you to a better post as soon as find one!

GSkinner - This year Grant went more on the how to handle your workflow and solve programming problems, and eye opener.

Hoss - Hoss was amazing, with an energetic presentation of his work and telling us to focus on the user eXperience instead of everything else, because in the end that's all that matter, plus nudity!

So that was it for day two, I attended a few more sessions but i didn't see them as relevant as they were more for inspiration.

So we're at the end of day #1 over at FOTB '08, and as expect it was full of amazing and enticing talks.

Here's a small overview of what I attended:

Keynote with Richard Galvan: We were shown the new functionalities on CS4, nothing really new but it was still nice to see them there live, then the presentation shifted focus to the mobile and cross platforms. So all and all nothing really new or that we weren't expecting. And oh we've learned about FOTBm (flash on the beach in Miami!!).

Dr Woohoo: This was a first time for me since I didn't make it last year, and boy was I impressed, did you know that you can hook up flex/flash to panels and control all the cs3/cs4 applications through it? Amazing!

Carlos Ulloa: As always Carlos delivers! This time he started us off by talking about methodologies and team workflow and then proceeded to show us off his latest project in the making, a 3d racing sim game in PV3d! And boy was I blown away!

Geoff Stearns: The developer for the Youtube Video Player, gave us a simple, yet tight, overview of the problems he encountered and how he overcame them, interesting session that validated my assumptions and decisions on a recent project i finished.

TInk: As always with Tink he's a great speaker with a very pragmatic approach to his stuff and he demo'ed a cool animation framework for Flex that looked very very sexy. Ps: Expect an interview over at daily with him .

And that was it off to the inspiring session!