3D Plotter with PaperVision3D and Flex

Flex 3 uses ActionScript 3, the same language as Flash CS3(Flex 3 is available for free to educators!), and it produces shockwave-flash (swf) files that run in any browser/operating system that supports the free Flash Player plugin from Adobe. PaperVision3D is an open source project that can be used in conjunction with either Flash or Flex to produce stunning 3D effects.

The demo applet below highlights some of the remarkable qualities of PaperVision3D applets.  Below the demo are links for source code as well as video tutorials for building this applet in PaperVision3D.

Michael Lively
Northern Kentucky University

Try the Demo

Click the screen shot below to try the interactive applet at http://nkuflc.org/sincplot/ The graph shown is the sine cardinal function f(r) = sin(r)/r (with f(0) = 1 by definition) plotted in cylindrical coordinates.

Download Source Code

Source code for this applet can be downloaded from code.google.com by following the link below, choosing the Downloads tab, and clicking on plotter.zip.  Note that this list is constantly being revised.  Check back often to find more examples and tutorials.

http://code.google.com/p/flex3cookbook1/

Watch Video Tutorials

The following links to youtube videos provide in two parts a complete walkthrough for creating the applet:

• Part 1:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFLT9YA444
• Part 2:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvpIFLLLKp8

Read more about Flex and PaperVision3D

• Students and faculty members at educational institutions can get Adobe Flex Builder 3 Pro for free! Go to http://www.adobe.com/devnet/edu/ to learn more.
• Learn how to get PaperVision3D downloads and setp at the PaperVision3D Developer's Blog: http://blog.papervision3d.org/