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7.1 Vector Symbols

Vector symbols are graphical symbols specified using vector drawing operations. Vector graphics differ from bitmap images in that drawing operations are used to describe the content of the symbol instead of explicitly representing the color of each pixel. Each vector operation is also associated with a group of styles that define the line style, the main fill and a secondary fill ( for paths that have styles on both the inside and outside of the line).

Styles are referenced by index into a style table. Each vector symbol has at least one style table defined. A style table has two sets of styles : one for line styles and one for fill styles. Line styles can express the color and width of a line; fill styles can be either solid color fills, gradient fills, or bitmap fills.

The vector drawing operations supported by the SWF format are:

setLineStyle: set the line style of the next drawing operation
setMainFill: Set the main inner fill of the the next drawing operation
setRightFill: Set the secondary outer fill of the next drawing operation
moveTo: Move the current drawing location to the specified point
lineTo: draw a line from the current location to the specified point
curveTo: draw a curve (a quadratic Bezier curve) from the current location to the specified point using an additional control point to specify the parameters of the curve.

All additional drawing operations are decomposed to these operations, called primitives.



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