What does a Graphics object actually represents?

[abdul halim]

ok, I'm not even sure if that is the right question to ask. I've been confused by what is A Graphics object for a while now, I used to think that it is simply a tool to use to change colors and draw to specific container(ie JFrame, JPanel). However, I've been studying buffering(triple, double, flipping...etc) and how it works for 3 days now, and my confusion has only increased. for instance, why when we need to draw to the buffer(ie BufferStrategy, BufferedImage) we get its own graphics object to draw to it and then we project it to the screen? does the Graphics Object represent the drawing surface (ie the JPanel it self if we're using one to draw custom painting via JPanel#paintComponent(Graphics g)) ? and so when we're getting the graphics object of a buffer, do we actually get its drawing surface to paint on? Please somebody explain, any help is appreciated Thanks

so generally speaking if we are using a JPanel and we say bufferedImage#createGraphics and use that graphics object to draw to, we would not be drawing to the JPanel but to the BufferedImage correct?

[fred rosenberger]

I am no expert, but the Graphics class is abstract. So you never have an actual Graphics object...you have some other object type that is a sub-class of the Graphics object.

[abdul halim]

yes I understand that it is abstract, I was referring to the object that you get when you call createGraphics() or createDrawGraphics()

[Rob Camick]

if we are using a JPanel and we say bufferedImage#createGraphics and use that graphics object to draw to, we would not be drawing to the JPanel but to the BufferedImage correct?

Correct.

And then if you actually want the BufferedImage to be displayed on the panel then you use the Graphics object passed to the paintComponent() method of the JPanel to paint the BufferedImage on the panel.