What is Flash?

Flash 3 is the web standard for vector graphics and animation. Designed for the web, Flash is used to create beautiful and compact animations, navigation, interfaces, ad banners, logos, technical illustrations, and full-length cartoons. Using Flash, web designers can create interactive vector graphics and animations without scripting. Graphics from existing illustration tools, such as Macromedia FreeHand, can be easily integrated into Flash.

Flash was specifically designed for the web. One of the main issue that concern Web Designer is the need to keep image file sizes small which in turn is related to bandwidth. Most images on the Web are bitmaps, such as jpegs and gifs, this means that information about the

bitmap image

vector graphic

image must be stored pixel by pixel. Flash uses another image representation, instead of bitmaps it uses vector graphics. Vector graphics use mathematical functions to create theshapes. File sizes are a lot smaller with vector graphics than with bitmaps because less information has to be stored. Vector graphics can be zoomed in without any loss of resolution.

A few things that make Flash popular

• Smaller file sizes
• Interactive
• Animation
• Rollovers
• Support