Adobe adds 3D to updated Flash Player

Flash Player 10 adds 3D transformation and animation capabilities

Adobe has released a new version of its Flash Player for delivering interactive content and browser-based applications just a day after Microsoft updated its rival Silverlight platform.

Flash Player 10, available for download immediately, adds 3D transformation and animation capabilities, and supports acceleration of some graphics functions using a computer's graphics adapter chip, or GPU.

Adobe also said it is using its typography experience from other tools to bring print-quality publishing to the web in Flash Player 10.

Tom Barclay, Adobe's senior product marketing manager for Flash Player, said that the new features are all about "providing unprecedented creative control, enabling developers to create a cinematic type of experience".

For example, Barclay said that the Pixel Bender feature of Flash Player 10 allows a developer to create their own filters and effects which can be applied live to content running in the player.

The 3D support allows for simple 3D effects, enabling a design to be created in 2D, and translated and animated in a 3D space. Adobe demonstrated how this can be used to create a rotating cube, or a moving carousel of separate images.

With typography, Barclay explained that Adobe had used technology from InDesign to add a new text engine capable of flowing text across columns, around images and intermixing different fonts. "It gives the creator sophisticated control over typography," he said.

Other improvements include new APIs for sound which can dynamically generate audio, and which could be useful in content such as games.

At the same time, Adobe announced the availability of Flash CS4 Professional, the chief application for building content for Flash Player 10, and part of Adobe's Creative Suite 4 product family.

Developers can also build applications using XML and ActionScript, and Adobe said that a future product, codenamed Thermo, will target both designers and developers.

The free-to-download Flash Player is already installed on over 90 per cent of internet-connected desktop computers, according to Adobe. This compares with around 25 per cent for Microsoft's rival Silverlight technology, version 2 of which was released earlier this week.

Both technologies are cross-platform, running on Windows, Linux and Mac systems.