title: In Flex, how do I create, populate, and display a bitmap?
body: <p>Starting from a totally empty MXML application:</p>
  
  <pre><code>&lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?&gt;
  &lt;mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" 
      layout="absolute" &gt;
  
  &lt;/mx:Application&gt;
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>What is the script that will:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li>create a bitmap (should this be a <code>BitmapData</code> object?)</li>
  <li>programatically populate it with data (e.g. draw a circle) (is there any more efficient way to do this than repeatedly calling <code>BitmapData.SetPixel</code>?)</li>
  <li>render it within the application (e.g. centered in the middle) (how DO I get a bitmap onto the screen?  Online Flash samples show calling <code>myBitmap=new Bitmap(myBitmapData)</code> and then <code>myBitmap.AddChild</code>, but this throws an error in Flex).</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>??</p>
  
  <p>NOTE:  The goal is not just to get a circle on the screen, it's to populate a Bitmap (or BitmapData?  Or ???) object using SetPixel (or ???)  and then get its contents onto the screen, as one would need to do in an image processing or visual effects application.</p>