RAM357,

[quoted text, click to view]

Flash is great for animation in general. Flash's programming language,
ActionScript, has a drawing API for drawing lines and curves, so on the face
of it, this sounds like a good match.

[quoted text, click to view]

I've done similar things via .NET-based web services. My Flash apps
would hit ASP.NET middleware to query our own servers for weather data,
flight plans, maps, and so on -- really, very similar to what you're
describing.

[quoted text, click to view]

Absolutely. Again, you'll need middleware of some kind -- since Flash
cannot natively interact with a database -- but as long as your server
software can handle form posts (GET/POST), web services, remoting, and the
like, you'll be fine.

[quoted text, click to view]

Yes. Check out the "MovieClip class" entry of the ActionScript Language
Reference. You can read the whole Reference online at
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/. This class is arguably the most important
one to know, since your published SWF is, itself, a MovieClip instance.

[quoted text, click to view]

All do-able.

[quoted text, click to view]

How many people do you know who have the SVG plug-in installed? ;)
Download the trial and give Flash 8 a shot. Or at least read through the
MovieClip class. I've been involved with NASA-funded projects for two years
now on very similar-sounding projects. To be sure, Flash has its quirks,
just like any other platform -- this is advanced stuff, and you *will* bang
your head against the wall a few times -- but the Flash Player plug-in is
about as ubiquitous as it gets, and Flash is definitely capable of handling
these requirements, provided you write middleware to courier your data
requests.

Colin Moock's "ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second
Edition" is a boon, even though it was written for Flash MX (aka Flash 6),
and we're up to Flash 8. Pair that book up with Moock's "Essential
ActionScript 2.0", give it some elbow grease, and you'll be ... heh, you'll
be flying.


David
stiller (at) quip (dot) net
"Luck is the residue of good design."

Would Flash make a good tool for displaying animated replay of airplane flights
paths?

I am working for a company in the airport noise industry and we have developed
software that merges noises recorded around airports with flights. Users can
investigate abnormal noise events by reviewing information for flights during a
given time period.

We would like to develop a version of this software to be available on the web
to people living around certain airports. We will need to be able to query
remote servers for flight data, maps, and some tool for providing lat/long data
based on a user's zip code, etc.

I guess the biggest question is if Flash is designed to take information "on
the fly" such as the flight track data points, do some processing of the data
and then display the graphical representation to the user? Also, can various
elements be possitioned and even layered accurately in Flash? For example I
would need to have multiple "layers" dedicated to map details for an airport
and surrounding areas (Layer 1 - basic terrain, L2 - major highways and
streets, L3 - rivers and waterways, etc). I would then need to be able to draw
the flight path accurately over the map in a separate layer. I would also want
to be able to indicate to the user their location on the map in a separate
layer, etc.

I have had no exposure whatsoever to Flash's capabilities and don't know if we
would be better off just working with SVG or OpenGL or something along these
lines???

Any suggestions or thoughts would be helpful...

Thanks,
Rob

David,
Thank you very much for the thorough response. I am encouraged by what you
had to say (and also chuckled at your admission that I'll "bang my head"
through some of it... I'm very familiar with this as I constantly maintain
several knots up there).
I will continue to investigate Flash and most likely will purchase the books
you mentioned. I just stumbled on some articles by Colin Moock prior to
reading your post. So I will pay particular attention to what he has to say.
Thanks again for the time and effort in your response.

Take care,
Rob Milton