AdvancED Flex 4

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Chapter 15

Using 3D in Flex

by Charlie Schulze

In one chapter it would be impossible to learn everything about 3D in Flex, but this chapter gives you

enough knowledge to get started. There are several APIs at your disposal if you want to work with 3D in

Flex. The API covered in this chapter will be Papervision.

The goal of this chapter is not to teach you 3D but rather teach you how you can use the Papervision API

in your Flex projects. Getting started is a relatively painless process.

Before You Begin

First download the Papervision source or swc. For the examples in this chapter we will use the

Papervision3D_2.0.883.swc file (http://papervision3d.googlecode.com/files/Papervision3D_

2.0.883.swc).

In the following examples we will extend BasicView, which is included with Papervision3D. There is one

important difference between Papervision’s BasicView in Flex, and Flash. Since a Papervision BasicView

extends Sprite and not UIComponent, you cannot add it to your application with a simple addChild or

addElement. An easy way to get around this is to create a wrapper for adding it to the application, as you’ll

see shortly.