Java 2D API Graphics

The Java 2-D API counts among the most significant recent additions to the Java platform. The API makes it relatively easy for the programmer to treat hardware devices (including video displays and printers) as abstractions, and simplifies the process of conceiving, manipulating, and displaying geometric figures. It also incorporates a sophisticated color model (with support for transparency) and allows programmers to manipulate styled characters with a far greater degree of precision (and with greater ease) than before.

The book coverage is thorough, and is sure to save developers time that would have been spent in figuring out details through experimentation. Hardy has earned special praise by including sequences of steps that illustrate how jobs get done in the Java 2-D API. For example, he summarizes the process of rendering to a printer with eight steps, compactly stating which classes need to be used, which interfaces you need to implement, and which methods you need to call.

There's plenty of example code here (and on the companion CD-ROM), but Hardy doesn't make you decode an example in situations in which a quick statement of procedure will work. He also makes great use of illustrations (to show how such phenomena as joins and end caps are calculated, for example) and mathematical formulas (to show how AffineTransforms work). Many of the illustrations are in color, a valuable feature. --David Wall

Topics covered: The Java 2-D API for programmers with experience elsewhere in the Java language. The author pays attention to the basics--such as manipulating and rendering shapes--but also goes into detail on the Graphics Layer Framework (GLF) and the advanced rendering capabilities of the Java 2-D API (including text layout, fancy light effects, photo manipulation, and the simulation of 3-D objects with light and shadow).