Lesson: Overview of the Java 2D API Concepts

The Java 2D API provides two-dimensional graphics, text, and imaging capabilities for Java programs through extensions to the Abstract Windowing Toolkit (AWT). This comprehensive rendering package supports line art, text, and images in a flexible, full-featured framework for developing richer user interfaces, sophisticated drawing programs, and image editors. Java 2D objects exist on a plane called user coordinate space, or just user space. When objects are rendered on a screen or a printer, user space coordinates are transformed to device space coordinates. The following links are useful to start learning about the Java 2D API:

The Java 2D API provides following capabilities:

  • A uniform rendering model for display devices and printers
  • A wide range of geometric primitives, such as curves, rectangles, and ellipses, as well as a mechanism for rendering virtually any geometric shape
  • Mechanisms for performing hit detection on shapes, text, and images
  • A compositing model that provides control over how overlapping objects are rendered
  • Enhanced color support that facilitates color management
  • Support for printing complex documents
  • Control of the quality of the rendering through the use of rendering hints

These topics are discussed in the following sections: