Saving a FLASH MOVIE (SWF) as a PNG.

[davidmpeace]

Hey Everyone,

Here's what I'm trying to do. I have a database, and I'm continually polling it for information to pass to a flash movie on my form. The flash movie renders the data I need (don't ask why I have to use flash, but it's the only method I can use so bear with me) Basically, I'm trying to take a snapshot of a FLASH movie, and save the image data to a PNG file on a server. And this needs to happen continuously on the server, with no human intervention.

I've done my due diligence, and searched this site for answers. And came across some helpful posts.

I altered some code I found a little for my specific needs, did some testing, and it worked BEAUTIFULLY! I load in my flash movie, I have a button that takes a snapshot, and the PNG saves to the server. You'd think my problem is solved, HOWEVER, I need it to do 1 very important thing, that it currently doesn't do.

AND I'M IN DESPERATE NEED OF HELP ASAP!

I need it to still work whether or not windows are in front of it, and whether or not the window is minimized. Basically, as long as the program is running, it should work, no matter if I can see the flash app or not.

Is there anybody that can help me?

If I need to render the flash app in some hidden buffer, I'm fine with that. The output is the important part, NOT the interface.

Help would be greatly appreciated my friends.

Thanks!!!!!

 

[vis781]

This could be very tricky, borderline impossible if i'm right in my thinking about how windows actually handles screen repainting, flash or no flash. The only way I can think of is that you will have to query the flash file for the frame at the alloted time. I'm not even sure how you would begin to do that.