In the Android SDK documentation, all of the examples used with the @drawable/my_image xml syntax directly address images that are stored in the res/drawable directory in my
assets/ You can use it to store raw asset files. Files that you save here are compiled into an .apk file as-is, and the original filename is preserved. You can navigate this directory in the same way as a typical file system using URIs and read files as a stream of bytes using the AssetManager. For example, this is a good location for textures and game data. http://developer.android.com/tools/projects/index.html