In the example below you’ll see two balls that change colour and position when hit. Code is in the zip-file.

See my post about Frame differencing for other Flash and Processing examples.

Example (Flash Player 10 or higher)

You need a webcam and give Flashplayer access to the camera to see the example below :

Used resources

• Using BitmapData.hitTest for Collision Detection by Mike Chambers
• code snippet from Zevan

Download : Framedifferencing collision detection – source code

If you have suggestions for more improvements, please give your feedback in the comments.

Modifications

• Implemented Adaptive Threshold by Quasimondo (Mario Klingemann) in the GetQRimage Class.
• Added the substract blur method that Mario Klingemann explains in his lecture about the process of reading QR codes. I’ve got less wrong strings in this mode and the detection runs faster. You can set it to false, to use the original method.
• The outside parts of the video are cropped, to reduce image noise. By providing a markerGuide the user knows where to hold the marker.
• The data from the onQrDecodeComplete event is compared with the data from a previous event as a way of extra error correction.

The user interface uses the minimalcomps by Keith Peters (bit-101) and the Hi-Res! stats by Mr. Doob.

Example (Flash Player 10 or higher)

Generate a QRcode and print it out.
You need a webcam and give Flashplayer access to the camera to see the example below :

Used resources

• Introduction of QR Code Reader Library
• QRCodeReader library (Libspark)
• Max 2008 develop – Be here pixels by Mario Klingemann (interesting lecture)
• Automated Threshold & Edge Detection

Download : ReadQrSimple – source code

If you have suggestions for more improvements, please give your feedback in the comments.

For receiving of data on the Arduino I’ll choose the Messenger library. It has some nice simple functions and gives you the opportunity to check if a string is fully received (a ‘carriage return’ is send by Flash at the end of a serial message in the SerialPort class) by Arduino. Of course you can write your own serial protocol. You can find some thoughts about it at the Todbot blog : Arduino serial protocol design patterns.

You can send data to the serial port with the Serial.print() and Serial.println() commands.

Included is the SerialPort class for Flash that makes it easy to send and receive serial data from/to the Arduino. I’ve modified the original (from tinker.it) so it supports start and stop characters. As a stop character ‘carriage return’ is used (‘\r’, or char(13)) that is send when you do Serial.println(); from Arduino.

I advise using a start character (not used in the example below) as well, because sometimes (especially when sending on a high datarate) characters at the beginning if the string can get lost.

The download contains SerialPort.as and example_messenger.fla (CS3).

Download : flash-arduino-as3-messenger

Step by step guide for Messenger library communication

• Download the Messenger library and install it in your Arduino/libraries/ folder ( you can find it by default in your documents folder ). Restart Arduino if it was running.
• Open basic_communication_old in my zip-file (basic_communication included in the Messenger examples has been changed).
  I’ve modified the old example in two ways. I’ve changed the serial speed to a baudrate of 57600, so you don’t have to change the Serproxy.cfg if you use it with Firmata as well and I have change the update interval to 40ms (instead of 20ms) for more stability.
• Upload the Sketch to the Arduino.
• Configure Serialproxy for your Arduino board and run it.
• Open example_messenger.fla and run it.
• If everything went fine you’ll see the led on pin 13 blinking and 6 balls, controlled by the analog inputs, moving on the screen.

Example_messenger code

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var receivedValues:Array = new Array();



// Arduino connection



/* SerialPort(localhost, netport, start character, stop character)

   for more stability use a startcharacter so you can check if a message is complete

   default stop character is carriage return '\r' 

   A carriage return is send by the Arduino command Serial.println();

*/



var arduino:SerialPort = new SerialPort("127.0.0.1", 5331);

arduino.addEventListener(DataEvent.DATA, onArduinoData );

arduino.connect();



// Setup a timer to send data to the Arduino

// The timer object calls the timerEvent function 20 times a second (every 50ms)

var timer = new Timer(500);

timer.addEventListener("timer", timerEvent);

timer.start();



// toggle variable that is switched by the timer from true to false and back

var toggle:Boolean= true;



function timerEvent(event:Event):void 

{   

    // change toggle boolean to the opposite

    toggle = !toggle;

    

    if(toggle == true)

    { // make ledPin 13 HIGH - onboard led on 

      //arduino.send("on"); // For Messenger checkString example

      arduino.send("13 1"); // For Messenger basic_communication example

    }

    else

    { // make ledPin 13 LOW - onboard led off

      //arduino.send("off"); // For Messenger checkString example

      arduino.send("13 0");  // For Messenger basic_communication example

    }

    

    /*

    When you have a certain amount of values it will be smart to keep them

    in an array (so you only modify the array indexes that change.

    

    You can convert an array to a character seperated string (space character for 

    Messenger library) with the join function.

    

    Example :

    var sendValues:Array = new Array(2,4,8,16,32,64,128);

    arduino.send(sendValues.join(" "));

    

    */

}



// add some balls to the stage to display incoming analog values

var ballArray = new Array();



for(var i:int = 0;i<6;i++)

{   

    var ball:MovieClip = new Ball();

    ballArray[i] = ball;

    ball.width = ball.height = 50;

    ball.y = 10;

    ball.x = 10+(i*60);

    addChild(ball);

}



// Called when data is received from the Arduino

function onArduinoData( event:DataEvent ):void

{   

    trace("received string : ", event.data );



    /* The values from Arduino Messenger are space seperated values. We will 

       store each value in the receivedValues array.    

    */

    receivedValues = event.data.split(" "); 

    

    // change the y position of the balls on stage 

    for(var i:int = 0;i<6;i++)

    { var mc = ballArray[i];

      mc.y = receivedValues[i] * 350/1023;  

    }   

}

I’ve created a Flash monitor application with As3Glue to make it easier to start with Flash Arduino communication.

Glue is an ActionScript 3.0 library that enables communication between Flash and Arduino boards with Firmata. Since Flash cannot interface the serial port directly we’ll use Serialproxy in between. Serialproxy converts incoming serial data the XMLsocket data.

The monitor is useful to check if all the connections are working good. You can monitor directly all the sensors and actuators connected to your Arduino board.

The example code file is a start point to program your own things controlled by Arduino. Its support the normal Arduino board and the Arduino Mega.

Included files :

• AS3Glue files (.net.eriksjodin.arduino)
• Tinkerproxy osx (renamed to serproxy)
• Serialproxy windows (renamed to serproxy)
• as3glue_standalone_monitor.app
• as3glue_standalone_monitor.exe
• as3glue_standalone_monitor.fla
• as3glue_program-example.fla

The Firmata library is included with Arduino itself. Make sure you use Arduino 018 or higher, because the Firmata library included in version 017 is not stable.

• Update (12-05-10, v1.3): I’ve updated the code for the support of two servo motors (pin 9 and pin 10).
• Update (17-09-10, v1.5): Program example simplified. Now executables included and hosted on Google code.
• Update (11-02-11, v1.6): Program example included state-change example. Arduino UNO connection example in serialproxy.cfg.
• Update (20-10-11, v2.0): Included support for the Arduino Mega in the program example. Thanks to Mochammad Effendi.

Download the zip-file : arduino_as3glue_bundle_v2.0

You can make a Photobooth of this script as well. Mark Knol wrote an ImageSaver class that sends a .jpg or .png picture of a Display element to a simple PHP script that stores it on a webserver :
Stroep.nl AS3 ImageSaver Class.

You need a webcam and give Flashplayer access to the camera to see the example below :

For more in-depth information see the following subjects in the Flash Actionscript 3.0 reference :

• filters
• bitmapdata
• camera

The code ( copy-paste directly in a new Flash project in the Actions – Frame. )

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/*

Example how to detect motion in a webcam image and to apply a color filter 

and/or rotation. 



www.kasperkamperman.com - 10-03-2010

*/



var fps:int = 25; // frames per second you want to grab and display



var cam:Camera;

cam = Camera.getCamera();

cam.setMode(640,480,fps);



var video:Video;

video = new Video(cam.width, cam.height);

video.attachCamera(cam);



// motion detector ------------------------------------------------

cam.setMotionLevel(30, 100); // level 30, timer 500ms

cam.addEventListener(ActivityEvent.ACTIVITY, activityHandler);



// variable to store movement ( use later to apply the filter )

var imageMovement:Boolean = false; 



function activityHandler(e:ActivityEvent):void 

{  if (e.activating == true) {

    imageMovement = true;

    trace("movement above threshold. Level :"+cam.activityLevel);

   } else {

    imageMovement = false;

    trace("no movement. Level :"+cam.activityLevel);

   }    

}



// --- filter ---------------------------------------------------------



// filter green/blue components ( leave red)

var redFilterMatrix:Array = new Array();

redFilterMatrix = redFilterMatrix.concat([1, 0, 0, 0, 0]); // red

redFilterMatrix = redFilterMatrix.concat([0, 0, 0, 0, 0]); // green

redFilterMatrix = redFilterMatrix.concat([0, 0, 0, 0, 0]); // blue

redFilterMatrix = redFilterMatrix.concat([0, 0, 0, 1, 0]); // alpha



var filter:ColorMatrixFilter = new ColorMatrixFilter(redFilterMatrix);



// --- BitmapData ------------------------



// make a BitmapData object on which you can draw to video

// ( exchange width/height when you want to rotate the image )

var bmd:BitmapData = new BitmapData(cam.width,cam.height,false,0);



// rectangle and pointer for applying filter

var rect:Rectangle = new Rectangle(0, 0, bmd.width, bmd.height);

var point:Point = new Point(0, 0);



var canvasBitmap:Bitmap = new Bitmap(bmd); // link BitmapData to Bitmap 

addChild(canvasBitmap);                    // add Bitmap to stage



// --- rotate camera image ---------------------------------------------------



var rotateMatrix:Matrix = new Matrix();

rotateMatrix.rotate(2 * Math.PI * (90 / 360));

rotateMatrix.translate(cam.height,0);



// --- Timer to refresh the image --------------------------------------------

var refreshTimer:Timer = new Timer(1000/25); // 1000ms / 25fps

refreshTimer.start();

refreshTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, imageRefresh);



function imageRefresh(e:Event)

{    // draw video on BitmapData

     bmd.draw(video);

     

     // draw video rotated on BitmapData ( don't forget to change BitmapData to 

     // the right size ) and comment the bmd.draw(video) line. 

     //bmd.draw(video, rotateMatrix);

     

     // apply the red filter when there is enough image movement

     if(imageMovement==true) bmd.applyFilter(bmd,rect,point,filter);    

}

Tutorial that explains how to setup communication between Arduino and Flash with provided example files.

Update : See Arduino Flash communication AS3 – As3Glue bundle for an Actionscript 3 tutorial.

You can read sensors connected to the Arduino in Flash and send output information to actuators connected to the Arduino. Communication between Flash and Arduino is setup with the Serialproxy program that converts serial strings in to XML socket data.

The zip package can be download from : arduino.cc/playground/uploads/Interfacing/flash_arduino_io_2.zip

UPDATE : Serialproxy doesn’t work anymore under Snow Leopard ( osx 10.6 ) without installing Rosetta. However you can also use Tinkerproxy2. That works in the same way as Serialproxy. Just rename your serproxy.cfg to tinkerproxy2.cfg or you can rename the program tinkerproxy2 to serproxy. tinkerproxy-2_0.zip

See the Playground in Arduino for more Flash implementations : arduino.cc/playground/Interfacing/Flash/