3D Statistics In Flash?

[Xerond]

They there, my name is Travis Ladner and I'm working to pilot an open-source community initiative called The Synergy Project.

www.OneSynergy.org

We're trying to figure out what client-side app would be more appropriate for the end goals of the project.

The basic project concept is this: To apply the same premise of bug-tracking to real world social concerns. Users submit "problems" from the real world into the system. These problems can be tracked in user activity, can be voted on if they are relevant or not, and can be tied or related to similar problems. These issues can be related to each-other either geographically by scale, or by specific categories(education, ecology, politics, transportation, etc). Along with creating the community back-end... We want to display 3d statistic of these issues as they relate to each-other. I've put up a video of me going over some page concepts and explaining the visualization in our forums here:

http://www.onesynergy.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=4

So our main question is, would flash be appropriate for the design concept we're envisioning? If you'd like any more details I'll be glad to answer them here. This is a new project and we're sorting out what platforms to tackle based on our end goals.

Thanks for your time. =)

[Diniden]

Flash is a great visual web component for a UI. It also has easy handling for sending information to a server via sockets.

As for displaying 3D results, it depends how intense the 3D is. Flash lacks processing power and hardware access to display intensive 3-dimensional graphics. But if the graphics are not too polygon intensive, then flash would probably be a great way for clients to view and send information.

With flash you receive the advantages of multi-platforming, you won't have to worry about what type of computer or browser your user is running. You will gain the advantage of being able to easily display full bodied user interface components and incorporate functionality without a huge learning curve to do so. Also, flash has built in components for communicating with sockets so your information can be handled with ease by your server.

Just keep in mind, the heavy processing will have to be done with the server.

If you require high processing power on the client side, then I suggest using Visual Studio. But if you just want to display some simple forms and some simple 3D graphs and charts, then by all means, use flash : ) it's a great program.