The focus of Degrafa beta 1 and 2 was to set up a solid core that would allow us to do really innovative things and make really complex things easy to do. We’re also chipping away at the need to have any external graphics referenced in your project. A new feature in Degrafa Beta 3 gets us even closer to meeting these goals.

This new feature is a new Fill type called VectorFill that is going to change the way you think about what’s possible visually in your applications. VectorFill allows you to compose any Degrafa geometry together and use it as a Fill for any other Degrafa geometry. As a simple example, imagine you wanted a background of diagonal lines. To achieve this with VectorFill all you need to do is draw one diagonal line using Degrafa, specify that Line as a source in a VectorFill, then apply that VectorFill to a Degrafa geometry object using the fill property.

Just like any other Degrafa object, you could edit that diagonal line, say change a color, and that change will dynamically get updated in the applied VectorFill. Also, when we say you can compose any Degrafa geometry together we mean shapes, transforms, fills, repeaters, strokes, and so on. You could move shapes with in VectorFill to create panning or use VectorFill with the Flex charting components to make really rich visuals. The possibilities are endless.

We’ve also added additional properties to VectorFill to allow for even more powerful ease of use. You get all the BitmapFill goodness of repeat, scale and angle etc. You also get the recently revealed fill transform features as well. And you also get filters, autosettings, background SolidFill and the ability to clip the fill source geometry based on a third geometry object (or even part of composition). Let’s take a look at some samples.

Below is an example of a VectorFill being used in a Circle. As you move your cursor over the eagle a zoomed view is shown. If you use your mouse wheel you can zoom in and out. This is not a mask, but a VectorFill with a clipSource setting (assigned to the magnifier’s lens) moving around and scaling in the Circle. To show a possible use, a second fill, a BitmapFill is used to take ’snapshots’.

Another example is using VectorFill to customize charting components. The example below uses a VectorFill to represent visually the sport for which the data pertains to. This opens a lot of doors for really custom-looking data visualization using existing charting components.

A more simple example is based on the scenario I outlined above; a diagonal line background. Most examples I’ve seen that use Degrafa always have one bitmap graphic in there for some kind of background. Well, now you can go completely vector. Below is a diagonal line background that uses a VectorFill and a Degrafa Line applied to a Rectangle. I’ve thrown in some other controls so you can see the live updates on the VectorFill.

We’re really excited about what will now be possible with this new VectorFill and some of the other new features we’ll be sharing soon.