How to add multiple layers onto JPanel

Question

I need some help with Java Swing components and its capabilities. I need to add a JPanel to a JFrame and paint an Ellipse2D on it. Onto the Ellipse2D I want to add another element, in my case it is a picture (right now I use an ImageIcon, maybe wrong). How can I achieve adding the Ellipse2D and the picture on the panel as shown in the image I attached?

The reason why I need the images separated is, because I need to change the filling color of the ellipse sometimes.

Thanks for any help. enter image description here

score 6 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 26 '12 at 11:32

6

What you need is to create a custom JPanel implementation and override paintComponent method.

Inside it, you just do:

public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {

    super.paintComponent(g);

    // Draw ellipse here

    // Draw your image here. It will be drawn on top of the ellipse.

}

This way, you can hold the ellipse fill color in the CustomPanel class, and just call repaint() method after you change the color.

answered Jun 26 '12 at 11:32

npe

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Also need to either set the preferredSize or override `getPreferredSize()` so that the component is laid out properly – Guillaume Polet Jun 26 '12 at 11:50
How would you draw the Image? `Graphics2D` offers the `drawImage()` method which looks little bit complicated to me, as there is some Observer to set. – nyyrikki Jun 26 '12 at 12:10
just set the observer to null: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1684422/how-does-java-graphics-drawimage-work-and-what-is-the-role-of-imageobserver – lbalazscs Jun 26 '12 at 12:23
Rather set the observer to `this` – Guillaume Polet Jun 26 '12 at 12:32

mKorbel · Answer 2 · 2012-06-26T12:58:30.607

your idea could be very good described (including code example) in the Oracles tutorial How to Decorate Components with the JLayer Class
notice JLayer is available only for Java7, but its based on (for Java6) JXLayer
you can use (I'm using) GlassPane too, with the same / similair output to the Swing GUI

EDIT

quite easy and nice output is by using OverlayLayout, there is possible to overlay J/Component(s) with Graphics e.g., a few examples

score 0 · Answer 3 · edited Jun 27 '12 at 06:12

0

take the two images as image icons like

ImageIcon car=new ImageIcon("image path");
ImageIcon elipse=new ImageIcon("image path");

add those two image icons two label

JLabel carLabel=new JLabel(car);
JLabel ellipseLabel=new JLabel(ellipse);

and set the position of ellipse and car

carLabel.setBounds(0,0,50,50);
ellipseLabel.setBounds(10,10,50,50);

edited Jun 27 '12 at 06:12

Thiem Nguyen

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answered Jun 27 '12 at 05:18

padman

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How to add multiple layers onto JPanel

3 Answers3