Chapter 5. An Introduction to Java Imaging

This chapter presents an overview of image loading and processing in Java, areas that have seen major changes in recent releases of the SDK, mainly driven by the wish for speed. It's principally about introducing concepts that are illustrated in more detail in Chapter 6.

I begin by reviewing the (rather outmoded) AWT imaging model, which is being superseded by the BufferedImage and VolatileImage classes, ImageIO, and the wide range of BufferedImageOp image operations offered by Java 2D. If these aren't enough, then Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) has even more capabilities.

Many of the topics discussed here are utilized in Chapter 6, where I develop a ImagesLoader class. It loads images from a Java ARchive (JAR) file using ImageIO's read( ) and holds them as BufferedImage objects.

Chapter 6 utilizes ImagesLoader in an ImagesTests application, which demonstrates 11 different visual effects, including zapping, teleportation, reddening, blurring, and flipping. The effects are derived from Java 2D operations, such as convolution and affine transformation.