Trail: 2D Graphics

Lesson: Advanced Topics in Java2D

The Java Tutorials have been written for JDK 8. Examples and practices described in this page don’t take advantage of improvements introduced in later releases and might use technology no longer available. See Java Language Changes for a summary of updated language features in Java SE 9 and subsequent releases. See JDK Release Notes for information about new features, enhancements, and removed or deprecated options for all JDK releases.

Controlling Rendering Quality

Use the
Graphics2D class rendering hints attribute to specify whether you want objects to be rendered as quickly as possible or whether you prefer that the rendering quality be as high as possible.

To set or change the rendering hints attribute in the Graphics2D context, construct a
RenderingHints object and pass it into Graphics2D by using the setRenderingHints method. If you just want to set one hint, you can call Graphics2D setRenderingHint and specify the key-value pair for the hint you want to set. (The key-value pairs are defined in the RenderingHints class.)

For example, to set a preference for antialiasing to be used if possible, you could use setRenderingHint:

public void paint (graphics g){
    Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
    RenderingHints rh = new RenderingHints(
             RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
             RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
    g2.setRenderingHints(rh);
...
}

Note: Not all platforms support modification of the rendering mode, so specifying rendering hints does not guarantee that they will be used.

RenderingHints supports the following types of hints:

Hint
Key
Values

Antialiasing
KEY_ANTIALIASING
VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON
VALUE_ANTIALIAS_OFF
VALUE_ANTIALIAS_DEFAULT
Alpha Interpolation
KEY_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION
VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_QUALITY
VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_SPEED
VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_DEFAULT
Color Rendering
KEY_COLOR_RENDERING
VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_QUALITY
VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_SPEED
VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_DEFAULT
Dithering
KEY_DITHERING
VALUE_DITHER_DISABLE
VALUE_DITHER_ENABLE
VALUE_DITHER_DEFAULT
Fractional Text Metrics
KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS
VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON
VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_OFF
VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_DEFAULT
Image Interpolation
KEY_INTERPOLATION
VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BICUBIC
VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR
VALUE_INTERPOLATION_NEAREST_NEIGHBOR
Rendering
KEY_RENDERING
VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY
VALUE_RENDER_SPEED
VALUE_RENDER_DEFAULT
Stroke Normalization Control
KEY_STROKE_CONTROL
VALUE_STROKE_NORMALIZE
VALUE_STROKE_DEFAULT
VALUE_STROKE_PURE
Text Antialiasing
KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_OFF
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_DEFAULT
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_GASP
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_HRGB
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_HBGR
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_VRGB
VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_VBGR
LCD Text Contrast
KEY_TEXT_LCD_CONTRAST
Values should be a positive integer in the range 100 to 250. A lower value (such as 100) corresponds to higher contrast text when displaying dark text on a light background. A higher value (such as 200) corresponds to lower contrast text when displaying dark text on a light background. A typical useful value is in the narrow range 140-180. If no value is specified, a system or implementation default value will be applied.

When a hint is set to default, the platform rendering default is used.