Hi everyone, I am trying to program a little 2d application in java, just something that plots pixels to a screen. I want to recreate my good ol days with the spinning cubes, but I am unsure about how I should plot pixels in an efficient manner, I know about the Point2D class, but I would like to know, is there a better way of doing this. If you know anything that can help me please do tell me thanks Kosh

I know perhaps Java3D is a better choice, but I am trying to create a rendering engine, so using someone else''s 3d engine isnt a way that I would like to proceed, therefore, 2d is only open to me

do you have any online links ? cause I dont want to buy ANOTHER java book only to find that I didnt really need it.
spent too much money to do that mistake again....

thanks

ok, sorry to say this, but saying "buy this book" and "buy that book" is not what I want help with, I know I can buy this and that, but I dont want to buy another java book, I have four already, I want somewhere on the web that can help me, I have followed the advice of people before, spent over £150 on books in java and all of them have been a disappointment so therefore I wont buy another java book, cause I dont think they are worth it.

Can someone please suggest anything else other than "buy this book"

thanks.

kosh

lovely, I''ll check that out, thanks

Let me get this straight, you want to plot pixels to a screen? If by a pixel you mean a real pixel of size 1x1, then maybe you should familiarize yourself to the usage of an animated MemoryImage source. That technique is largely used in Java demos and should be quite fast (at least it is much faster than plotting hundreds/thousands of points through Graphics object).

The downside is that you''ll have to calculate all the transformations by yourself (calculate the screen x,y coordinates from world coordinates).

The technique is simply:
1) During initialisation create an integer array of size (screen width x height) and use that array to create an java.awt.image.MemoryImageSource and create an image from that. Set the memory image to be animated by calling the setAnimated(true) on it.


int[] pixels = new int[ width * height ];
MemoryImageSource memImageSrc =
new MemoryImageSource(
width,
height,
ColorModel.getRGBdefault(),
pixels,
0,
width );
memImageSrc.setAnimated( true );
Image theWholeScreen =
Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().createImage(
memImageSrc );


2) You modify the individual pixels by setting the integer arrays values to wanted pixel values.


// Set pixel at x,y coordinates to red
pixels[ x + y * width ] = 0x00FF0000;


3) You tell the memory image source you have changed the pixels in the memory. Note: This should really just update the changed area, not the whole area as I have done here.


memImageSrc.newPixels( 0, 0, width, height );


4) You paint the image representing the whole screen to the graphics (in paint(Graphics g) or some other suitable way).


grfx.drawImage(
theWholeScreen,
0,
0,
null );


Hopefully this helps you getting started...