A Java bean that offers high performance display of images has been developed as a component of the Java Advanced Display Environment (JADE) computer program.

This component works asynchronously, loading and/or computing image tiles as needed in background threads. In so doing, it enables a main graphical-user-interface (GUI) thread to remain responsive even while loading huge images: scrolling and other actions can occur while images are being read in and/or computed. This component performs well even when loading images larger than 2 gigabytes. Display of such large images would not be practical without background processing of tiles. Scrolling is fast, regardless of image size, because the GUI is not hung while waiting for tiles to be loaded. This component is written using Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) 1.1. It is neutral with respect to image file format, so it can display almost any Java image, and it is platform-independent because it is pure Java. It also supports overlay of user-supplied graphics on images — a capability that can be used for such purposes as annotation of images, generating tie-point plots, and painting of complex or dynamic cursor shapes.

This program was written by Robert Deen of Caltech for NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

This software is available for commercial licensing. Please contact Don Hart of the California Institute of Technology at (818) 393- 3425. Refer to NPO-30471.



This Brief includes a Technical Support Package (TSP).
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Image Display Component of JADE

(reference NPO-30471) is currently available for download from the TSP library.

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