Java: Filling a BufferedImage with transparent pixels

Question

I have an off-screen BufferedImage, constructed with the type BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB. It can contain anything, and I'm looking for a way to (fairly efficiently) completely overwrite the image with transparent pixels, resulting in an 'invisible' image.

Using something like this:

    (bufimg.getGraphics()).setColor(new Color(10, 10, 100, 0));   
    (bufimg.getGraphics()).fillRect (0, 0, x, y);

Has no effect. One possible method might be just to write over every pixel in the BufferedImage, but I'm not sure this is the best solution. How would you do it?

[edit]
The Graphics documentation advises against using clearRect for off-screen images, but I have tried it with the same results as above.

[edit2]
After experimenting with MeBigFatGuy's code (thanks!), it does clear an image. But it also stops further painting to that image (or appears to). This code for example:

    BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage (600, 600, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
    Graphics g = img.createGraphics ()    
    g.drawLine (100, 100, 500, 500);
    AlphaComposite composite = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR, 0.0f);
    g.setComposite(composite);
    g.setColor(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
    g.fillRect(0, 0, 600, 600);
    graphicsAI.setColor(new Color (10, 10, 10, 255));
    graphicsAI.drawLine (100, 100, 500, 500);

Results in nothing seen on the image (I'm drawing the image to a JPanel). Is this something to do with the addition of alpha values?

Answer 1

After you clear the background with the CLEAR composite, you need to set it back to SRC_OVER to draw normally again. ex:

//clear
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR));
g2.fillRect(0,0,256,256);

//reset composite
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER));
//draw
g2.setPaint(Color.RED);
g2.fillOval(50,50,100,100);

Answer 2

You could get the underlying int[] array of your BufferedImage (make sure to use a compatible format: that is, one that is backed by an int[]).

Then fill the int[] with ints whose alpha value are 0 (0 will do ; )

A System.arraycopy will be very fast.

You have to know that directly writing in the int[] is a lot faster than using setRGB.

Now BufferedImage are a bit of a black art in Java: depending on what you're doing and on which platform/JVM you're doing it, you may lose hardware acceleration (which may never have been there in the first place anyway). In addition to that, you may very well not care at all about hardware acceleration anyway because you may not be working on, say, a game requiring 60+ FPS to be playable etc.

This is a very complicated topic and there's more than one way to skin the BufferedImage cat. As far as I'm concerned I work directly in the int[] when I've got to mess at the pixel level because I think it makes much more sense than trying to use higher-level drawing primitives and I do really don't care about the potential lost of hardware acceleration.

Answer 3

If you cast the Graphics object to a Graphics2D object, you can set a Composite object thru

AlphaComposite composite = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR, 0.0f);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
g2d.setComposite(composite);
g2d.setColor(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
g2d.fillRect(0, 0, 10, 10);

Answer 4

Despite you saying it doesn't work, I used clearRect quite fine.

Clears the specified rectangle by filling it with the background color of the current drawing surface. This operation does not use the current paint mode.

Beginning with Java 1.1, the background color of offscreen images may be system dependent. Applications should use setColor followed by fillRect to ensure that an offscreen image is cleared to a specific color.

---

Fills the specified rectangle. The left and right edges of the rectangle are at x and x + width - 1. The top and bottom edges are at y and y + height - 1. The resulting rectangle covers an area width pixels wide by height pixels tall. The rectangle is filled using the graphics context's current color.

It is not clearly stated here that one will set the rectangle to the background color, while the other will paint with the foreground color on top of the current colors, but it's what it seems to do.

This is pure speculation, but I think the note about offscreen images relates to Graphics objects obtained from offscreen AWT components, as they are native. I can hardly imagine how the background color of a BufferedImage could be system dependent. As the API doc is for Graphics, this could be a generalization not applying to the BufferedImage case.

My testing code:

JFrame jf = new JFrame();
jf.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage(200, 300, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);

Graphics2D g = img.createGraphics();

//fill right half with opaque white
g.setColor(Color.WHITE);
g.fillRect(100, 0, 100, 300);

//leave top third as it is

//fill middle third with transparent color
g.setColor(new Color(0, true));
g.fillRect(0, 100, 200, 100);

//clear bottom third with transparent color
g.setBackground(new Color(0, true));
g.clearRect(0, 200, 200, 100);

g.dispose();

jf.add(new JLabel(new ImageIcon(img)));

jf.pack();
jf.setVisible(true);

the result is two white squares, top right. Where no white was painted, or clearRect was used to overwrite the white, the result is a light gray, the frame's default background color.

Performance-wise, it's regular drawing. arraycopy might well be faster, I don't know, but at least this is likely hardware accelerated just as any other drawing operation.

A plus point versus the array solution is a) no additional memory and b) independence from the color model; this should work no matter how the image was set up.

A minus point versus the Composite solution is that it only allows clearing rectangles; setting the composite allows you to clear any kind of shape.

Answer 5

Setting the background of the graphics Object seems to do the job:

g.setBackground(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));

(at least when drawing images for scaling purposes)

Answer 6

For the sake of completeness, here is a working, testing, and fast function that is cross-platform compliant.

  static public BufferedImage createTransparentBufferedImage(int width, int height) {
     // BufferedImage is actually already transparent on my system, but that isn't
     // guaranteed across platforms.
     BufferedImage bufferedImage = new BufferedImage(width, height, 
                        BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
     Graphics2D graphics = bufferedImage.createGraphics();

     // To be sure, we use clearRect, which will (unlike fillRect) totally replace
     // the current pixels with the desired color, even if it's fully transparent.
     graphics.setBackground(new Color(0, true));
     graphics.clearRect(0, 0, width, height);
     graphics.dispose();

     return bufferedImage;
  }