Java™ Media APIs: Cross-Platform Imaging, Media, and Visualization

What Is Rendering?

Because we will spend a great deal of time talking about rendering, it will be useful to create an operational definition. Rendering is the process of making graphics and images objects appear on an output device. An output device is most often the screen, a printer, or a memory area.

Although that sounds pretty simple, the actual implementation is a fairly involved process. Consider the challenge of rendering a simple blue square or other shape to a monitor. A major problem is that the device space of the monitor is likely to be completely different from the user space that the programmer has used for defining the graphics to be output. This is especially true for an application written for the Internet or an intranet where ...