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Trail: 2D Graphics
Lesson: Displaying Graphics with Graphics2D

Constructing Complex Shapes from Geometry Primitives

Constructive area geometry (CAG) is the process of creating new geometric shapes by performing boolean operations on existing ones. In the Java 2D API a special type of Shape called an Area supports boolean operations. You can construct an Area from any Shape .

Areas support the following boolean operations:

Union Subtraction
Intersection Exclusive-or (XOR)

Example: Areas

In this example Area objects construct a pear shape from several ellipses.

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Pear.java contains the complete code for this applet.

The leaves are each created by performing an intersection on two overlapping circles.

leaf = new Ellipse2D.Double();
...
leaf1 = new Area(leaf);
leaf2 = new Area(leaf);
...
leaf.setFrame(ew-16, eh-29, 15.0, 15.0);
leaf1 = new Area(leaf);
leaf.setFrame(ew-14, eh-47, 30.0, 30.0);
leaf2 = new Area(leaf);
leaf1.intersect(leaf2);
g2.fill(leaf1);
...
leaf.setFrame(ew+1, eh-29, 15.0, 15.0);
leaf1 = new Area(leaf);
leaf2.intersect(leaf1);
g2.fill(leaf2);

Overlapping circles are also used to construct the stem through a subtraction operation.

stem = new Ellipse2D.Double();
...
stem.setFrame(ew, eh-42, 40.0, 40.0);
st1 = new Area(stem);
stem.setFrame(ew+3, eh-47, 50.0, 50.0);
st2 = new Area(stem);
st1.subtract(st2);
g2.fill(st1);

The body of the pear is constructed by performing a union operation on a circle and an oval.

circle = new Ellipse2D.Double();
oval = new Ellipse2D.Double();
circ = new Area(circle);
ov = new Area(oval);
...
circle.setFrame(ew-25, eh, 50.0, 50.0);
oval.setFrame(ew-19, eh-20, 40.0, 70.0);
circ = new Area(circle);
ov = new Area(oval);
circ.add(ov);
g2.fill(circ);

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