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Beginning Java 2- JDK 1.3 Version : Images and Animation

Buy this book Title: Beginning Java 2- JDK 1.3 Version ISBN: 1861003668 US Price: $ 49.99 Canadian Price: C$ 74.95 UK Price: £ 35.99 Publication Date: March 2000 Pages: 1230 © Wrox Press Limited, US and UK.

Beginning Java 2- JDK 1.3 Version
Images and Animation

Summary

This chapter has been a basic introduction to handling images and producing animations. Java provides much greater capabilities in this area than we have looked at, but with what you now know, you should not find it too difficult to explore those additional facilities yourself.

The important points that we covered in this chapter were:

• Implementing an applet generally involves implementing four methods that are called by the browser or the context in which the applet is running – the init() method that initializes the applet, the start() method that is called to start the applet, the stop() method that is called to stop() whatever the applet is doing and the destroy() method that is called when the applet ends. You should also implement the getAppletInfo() and getParameterInfo() methods for your applet.
• Objects of the URL class represent uniform resource locators on the Internet. You can define a URL in an applet either as an absolute URL, or relative to the original URL.
• An Image object represents an image, and you can create images from files in GIF, PNG,or JPEG format.
• The control of the timing interval for an animation generally runs in a separate thread, and in an applet the thread is usually started in the start() method and stopped in the stop() method.
• You can use an object of the java.util.Timer class to control an animation that you expedite through a TimerTask object. You can apply Timer and TimerTask object to scheduling any operation that recurs at a fixed time interval.
• The alpha component for a pixel specifies its transparency, where an alpha value of zero is transparent and a value of one is opaque.
• Alpha compositing determines how the components of the pixels for a source image are combined with the components of the destination image over which it is rendered.
• Rendering hints provide a way for you to trade between speed and quality in rendering operations.
• The type of line produced by drawing operations in a graphics context is determined by the current stroke set in the context. A line type is specified by a BasicStroke object.
• The glass pane for a JApplet or JFrame object overlays the content pane, so you can draw animated elements of an image in the glass pane and reserve the content pane for the fixed elements. You must ensure the background to the glass pane is transparent to enable the content pane to be seen.
• You can synthesize images by creating a BufferedImage object and drawing on it using the Graphics2D object that represents the image.

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