How do you combine two images side by side into one?

[joelwenzel]

Hi,

I need a way to combine two images into one. I need something that I can say

finalImage = image1 At (x1,y1) + Image2 at (x2,y2)

Basically, I want to paste two images side by side and get one final image as the result.

 

[joelwenzel]

Also, while we are on the subject of images....what exactly is an image observer? I always just write "this" when I do a draw image command such as

g.drawImage(pic,x,y,this)

Is it ever something other than "this"?

 

[idarke]

I wrote a program to read in two BMP files and join them. I based it on code I found here:

http://www.cs.queensu.ca/home/blostein/java.html

The code reads the BMP files into a four-dimensional byte array containing row, column, and colors. It's simple to then copy both arrays into a third larger array and write it back out as a new BMP.

 

[joelwenzel]

hey idarke,

you don't actually go to queen's do you?

 

[sedj]

I think you'd be a lot better off using the BufferedImage class or PlanarImage class from the JAI API rather than folling around with pixels yourself ...

http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/api/java/awt/image/BufferedImage.html

http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jai/

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[idarke]

No, I don't go to queens. I go wherever google takes me.

I fool around on the pixel level because I'm also doing some manipulation of the images as well as sticking them together. It's necessary because I make drawings larger than my scanner.

The JAI api looks interesting, if complicated. The FAQ gives some solutions to changing color and contrast that involve bit-shifting on byte arrays, so it seems you can't escape pixel-fiddling...

 

[joelwenzel]

I found this to work pretty good for my problem

Image Pic;
...
use Pic
...

Image tmpPic = createImage(width,height);
Graphics g = tmpPic .getGraphics();
g.drawImage(Pic,x1,y1,this);
g.drawImage(newAdditionPic,x2,y2,this);
Pic = tmpPic;