Manipulate placed bitmaps with AS3?

programming flash
1

Hi everyone, it’s been a while… got caught up in the land of HTML, CSS and PHP, so I’ve been a bit out of the whole Flash thing for a while :slight_smile:

Anyway, I’m now working on a fun little project, and I’ve come across a question that I can’t seem to find an answer for: Can you access and manipulate the bitmapData for a bitmap image that has been placed manually on the stage (or inside a MovieClip)?

I’m happy with creating bitmaps programmatically, and loading them in programmatically - but there doesn’t seem to be any way to get a bitmap to give up its bitmapData when it is placed by hand. I’ve tried to coerce the returned DisplayObject into a Bitmap with no luck, I’ve tried accessing the bitmapData property of the DisplayObject directly with no luck, I’ve read my way through the Flash help, the Essential AS3.0 book and a few searches with no luck.

So then - is it possible to work with a placed bitmap programmatically?

And if so… how?

Thanks :slight_smile:

2

Central function


var myBitmapData:BitmapData;
var bmp:Bitmap;
myBitmapData = new BitmapData(550, 400);
bmp= new Bitmap(myBitmapData);
myBitmapData.draw(my_text);
bmp.alpha=0.5;
addChild(bmp);

load example
http://dnadillo.dn.ua/fla/text-Glow-filter.swf
http://dnadillo.dn.ua/fla/text-Glow-filter.zip

http://dnadillo.dn.ua/fla/in-2-1.swf
http://dnadillo.dn.ua/fla/in-2-1.zip

http://dnadillo.dn.ua/mur_gallery/ac3FLA/star_war.swf
http://dnadillo.dn.ua/mur_gallery/ac3FLA/star_war.rar

http://kind-armadillo.pochta.ru/FlaAC3/Bmp_copy.swf
http://kind-armadillo.pochta.ru/FlaAC3/BMP_copy.rar

http://kind-armadillo.pochta.ru/FlaAC3/Mov_copy.swf
http://kind-armadillo.pochta.ru/FlaAC3/Mov_copy.rar

3

You cannot. Bitmaps on the timeline resolve to Shapes with BitmapData fills. These fills are not accessible after the shape is drawn so that particular instance of the BitmapData is lost to you - inaccessible. You’d have to recreate the bitmap programmatically.

4

I figured as much… when I saw Flash telling me off for trying to coerce a Shape it raised my suspicions somewhat.

I think what I’ll do is a bit nasty, but may work for what I’m after - use the bitmapData.copy() method to capture bits of the larger, placed bitmap and work on those. Thanks for your help :slight_smile:

And thanks too, Alex - your answer is very thorough, though not quite what I was asking. Perhaps I should have been a little clearer in my question :slight_smile:

5

maybe you could create a new BitmapData object, draw() the shape on the stage into it, and manipulate that BitmapData instead…

6

Something like:


var tempBitmap:BitmapData = new BitmapData(width, height, etc);

tempBitmap.draw(targetSprite);
//Access the bitmap data contained in that new bitmap.

That should do the trick.

7

Ack, I’d meant to write bitmapData.draw() - copy() doesn’t exist as a method for BitmapData :wink:

Thanks for the help guys, I appreciate it.