November 2002
Intermediate to advanced
848 pages
19h 59m
English
The Java Swing API is a nearly exhaustive collection of user interface widgets that can be used to build a user interface around a Java 3D application. There are some real challenges to mixing Swing and Java 3D components. This is largely because Swing components are lightweight whereas the Java 3D Canvas3D component is heavyweight.
The difference between lightweight and heavyweight components is a bit obscure. Simply stated, heavyweight components reference their own native screen resource called a peer. A lightweight component has no native peer and therefore temporarily uses the resources of a nearby native peer.
In general, lightweight UI components have many advantages including having ...