In computing, Java 2D is an API for drawing two-dimensional graphics using the Java programming language. Every Java 2D drawing operation can ultimately be treated as filling a shape using a paint and compositing the result onto the screen.

This book, although seven years old, is the best in print on learning the basics of Java 2D. Several other reviewers have said that the Java docs for the API from Sun are just as good, but I disagree. This book does a good job of taking a complex API and laying out what it takes to produce graphics using it.

It starts out explaining the architecture of the Java 2D API, and includes a very long "Hello Java 2D" example showcasing what the API can do. The author admits at the time it is presented that it is likely the reader will not understand the code until the book has been read.

Next, the author introduces the drawing of shapes, and then adds painting, stroking, transforming, compositing, and clipping to the equation, one by one, while explaining the nuances of each feature being added. Next, the author goes into adding text to your figures and also explains how to do simple image processing with the Java 2D API, even explaining how to "roll your own" image transform operations.

The book concludes with a discussion of printing, animation, and measuring performance with Java 2D. The author includes a flexible framework for performing animations using Java 2D. There is example code throughout the book that can be downloaded from the publisher's website. If you are looking for a book of image processing tricks and recipes in Java, this is not the book that you want. In that case you might want to read Hardy's excellent but out-of-print work, "Java 2D API Graphics", after you read this book. However, if you want a good foundation in programming with the Java 2D API and understanding its architecture, this is a very good source. I highly recommend it.

The book gives a very good introduction to java 2D graphics programming. I bought in in order to come up to speed in a new project involving display and analysis of dicom images. It did not fail me! Highly recommended.

This is a not worthy buying book. I bought it in Amazon, so, without flipping pages. The author expends much of the time showing things you can find in Sun's javadoc, with tiny examples. For example, I read on and on looking how to create a BufferedImage and came to nothing! If I wanted only commands, I could look in at Sun's javadoc. I bought the book expecting to find out how to stuff, not bla bla bla.

I really enjoyed this book. It covers two dimensional graphics very well. The code will challenge you. I like all books by Jonathan Knudsen. I think he is a good writer. If you a beginner, you might want to buy a primer on JAVA first before buying this book. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn JAVA Graphics2D

This book's content is great even though it spends a lot of ink regurgitating the doc (symptomatic of O'Reilly). Even with this it touches on everything within 230 pages while showing many examples.

My issue with this book is the way that the examples are written. It uses inner classes left and right requiring more careful reading of the code. I know this is a philosophical issue; but in general inner classes are a lazy programmer's tool which tends to confuse code and make it harder to read/maintain. It is bad enough that they are used in documented public APIs - in a didactic text, there's no need to exacerbate this.

Content gets 4 stars. Examples get 1 star. Since code examples are really 1/2 the content, it gets only two stars. Previous book by the author (on cryptography) had much better examples - and didn't use inner classes.