Java provides extensive support in its core API for working with images. Image processing is a vast area in its own right. Serious programmers in this domain use more than one tool/library, such as OpenCV , to work with images. Java, being a general purpose language, supports the essential features for common programming needs. However, the OpenCV library has its Java counterpart that can be effectively used for implementing more crude operations with the images. This article explores the key aspects of working with images using the core API library with a brief introduction on some background information.
As we talk of images in computing, they are of different types; the term colloquially mean graphics, pictures, images, logos, and so forth. This article makes no distinction and designates one and all of them as images; in fact, they are same from the programming point of view. The basic property of an image is defined by its dimension, resolution measured in pixels, and the coordinate system independent of the drawing surface. An image in Java is primarily an object of the Image class. It is a part of the java.awt package, along with many other auxiliary imaging classes and interfaces. These core APIs are used mainly for;
But, before delving into these processes, let’s get an idea of image file formats.
The information about the combination of color, pixels, and dimensions make an image file. They need to be stored in memory. As a result, the information has to be represented in an array of bits. An image file becomes quite large when represented in an simple array of bits. So, a mechanism is devised to compress them so that it not only reduces the file size but also retains visual quality. This is exactly what the encoding technique does. It arranges the bits in a manner that can be stored in a digital medium or transmitted easily in a network. Each encoding technique defines an image file format.
File formats are the data structure on how image information is encoded and stored in a repository. Understandably, these encoding techniques are quite complex and heavily depend upon complex mathematical formulation.
