Geometries

The Java 2D^TM API provides several classes that define common geometric objects, such as points, lines, curves, and rectangles. These new geometry classes are part of the java.awt.geom package. For backward compatibility, the geometry classes tha t existed in previous versions of the JDK software, such as Rectangle, Point, and Polygon, remain in the java.awt package.

The Java 2D API geometries such as GeneralPath, Arc2D, and Rectangle2D implement the Shape interface defined in java.awt. Shape provides a common protocol for describing and inspecting geom etric path objects. A new interface, PathIterator, defines methods for retrieving elements from a geometry.

Using the geometry classes, you can easily define and manipulate virtually any two-dimensional object.