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How to use a simple way to rotate a rectangle or triangle in java?

I'm currently working on a project with the theme of earth hour, and we are only allowed to use rectangles, circles and triangles. Here's the image i'm tring to create (not exactly, mine will be much more simplified!):
https://www.google.com/search?q=earth+hour&biw=1366&bih=586&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj__5H0vtvQAhXLrlQKHTi8BagQ_AUIBygC#imgrc=fQkBxn0a8LnwbM%3A
(not sure if you could see the link)
But when i'm coding it, i'm running into trouble to rotate those rectangles to stand on the tangent line of the circle. I'm a student just learnt some basics of java, like loops and arrays. So my quesiton is that if there's some understandable way that doesn't involve some complex and exotic methods that could rotate those rectangles? I know it will probably involve some complicated solutions that is beyond my knowledge. But any help is much appreciated.
this is part of the code that i build the building standing perpendicularly to the circle(earth):
// create mid buildings
Color blc = new Color(0, 0, 0);
Rectangle midBld = new Rectangle(240, 220, 20, 40, blc);
midBld.draw(g);
Rectangle midBld1 = new Rectangle(242, 190, 16, 30, blc);
midBld1.draw(g);
Triangle midBld2 = new Triangle(250, 160, 8, 30, blc);
midBld2.draw(g);
Triangle midBld3 = new Triangle(250, 160, -8, 30, blc);
midBld3.draw(g);

A Rectangle cannot be rotated, its edges are always in parallel to the axis. But you can rotate and translate the coordinate system in witch you draw the shapes. From Graphics2D API doc.
All coordinates passed to a Graphics2D object are specified in a device-independent coordinate system called User Space, which is used by applications. The Graphics2D object contains an AffineTransform object as part of its rendering state that defines how to convert coordinates from user space to device-dependent coordinates in Device Space.
Graphics2D also provide two methods that are useful in this task: translate that moves the origin of the coordinates and rotate that, well, rotates the system.
package graphics;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
/**
* Earth Hour
*/
public class RotateRect extends JFrame {
private static final int WIDTH = 400;
private static final int HEIGHT = 400;
public RotateRect() {
this.setSize(WIDTH, HEIGHT);
this.setTitle("Rotate Rectangles");
this.setContentPane(new JPanel() {
#Override
public void paint(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
// Background: White
g2.setColor(Color.WHITE);
g2.fillRect(0, 0, this.getWidth(), this.getHeight());
// Draw "Earth": Center(200, 400), Radius=200
g2.setColor(Color.BLACK);
g2.fillOval(0, 200, 400, 400);
// Move origin to center of the canvas (surface of earth)
g2.translate(200, 200);
// Rotate the coordinate system, relative to the center of earth.
// note x, y are in the translated system
// Transforms are accumulative
g2.rotate(-Math.PI/6, 0, 200);
// Fill a rectangle with top-left corner at (-20, 80) in the rotated system
// It's important to make the rectangle symmetrical to the y-axis, otherwise the building looks
// funny.
// Also, make the building "sunk" a little, so that it's fully on the ground.
g2.fillRect(-20, -80, 40, 100);
g2.rotate(Math.PI/3, 0, 200);
g2.fillRect(-20, -80, 40, 100);
g2.rotate(-Math.PI/6, 0, 200);
g2.fill(new Rectangle(-20, -80, 40, 100));
}
});
}
public static void main(String [] args) {
RotateRect rr = new RotateRect();
rr.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
EventQueue.invokeLater(()->rr.setVisible(true));
}
}

How to fade out the edges of a Java2D Area object?

I have a method that creates shadows based on where things are on the screen and the final product of that method is an Area, which I then draw onto the screen and it contains all shadows on screen in the same Area. This is because the drawn shadows are a low opacity so if it is not all one thing they will overlap and the opacity will make it look weird.
The issue that I want the shadows to look like they fade out, but I have absolutely no idea how, or if that would even be possible. Is there a way to soften the edges of the Area or make them gradient fade out? I tried to do graphics2D.setPaint(new GradientPaint[a gradient effect]) but it did nothing.
Thanks in advance
EDIT: Here is a screenshot of the program making a shadow around a 'building' rectangle. The green rectangle is to show the effect of the shadow. The end result I want is instead of the shadow abruptly ending, it should fade out.

i guess you have problems setting up the proper colors for the gradient:
#Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
g.setColor(Color.GREEN);
g.fillRect(30, 30, 50, 20);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
Polygon p = new Polygon(new int[]{10,20,50,50,40,10}, new int[]{10,10,40,50,50,20}, 6);
Area a = new Area(p);
Color b = new Color(0xFF000000, true); //using colors with transparency!!!
Color w = new Color(0x00FFFFFF, true); //using colors with transparency!!!
//try to use proper values for the x/y values - both, start and end
GradientPaint gradient = new GradientPaint(0, 0, b, 40, 40, w);
g2d.setPaint(gradient);
g2d.fill(a); // fill your area!
}
result is a gradient with alpha (Transparency) ...
Area drawn in red <==> Area drawn with Gradient
don't forget to set the alpha value 0xAARRGGBB to FF for 100% opaque (0xFF000000 is black 100%opaque) to 0 (0x00FFFFFF white, 100% transparent)

How can I rotate an Area object on its axis while also moving it along the y axis?

So I have an Area object that I have created and made into a 4 star polygon. What I want to do is rotate this object while simultaneously having it translate along the y axis.
This is my code for the points I use to create the object and the center of the star is the xloc and yloc with the paint function below that:
double rots = 0.0;
int xPoints[] = { 45, 48, 56, 48, 45, 42, 34, 42 };
int yPoints[] = { 56, 47, 45, 43, 34, 43, 45, 47 };
double xloc = 150, yloc = 250;
public void paint(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
RenderingHints rh = new RenderingHints( RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING, RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
rh.put(RenderingHints.KEY_RENDERING, RenderingHints.VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY);
g2d.setRenderingHints(rh);
g2d.translate(xloc, yloc);
g2d.rotate(rots);
g2d.fill(star);
//yloc += .01;
rots += .001;
repaint();
}
The problem I'm having is in the paint function. With getRotateInstance it spins along the axis of the xloc and yloc. When those numbers are incremented, the star's rotation widens out from its origin to encompass the whole screen. The only solution I can think of would be to change the xPoints[] and yPoints[] but I haven't been successful so far. Is there another way to make this work or a way to fix the problem I'm currently having?
EDIT: So I made some progress! I took the advice given and I'm close.
I replace the code AffineTransform trans = AffineTransform.getRotateInstance with this:
AffineTransform trans = new AffineTransform();
trans.setToTranslation(xloc, yloc);
trans.rotate(rots);
Now it rotates and moves across the screen but though it doesn't rotate around an increasingly large field, it still rotates around a point that I can't seem to make out. I'm guess it has to do with where the xloc and yloc points are. Based on my tests before, the xloc and yloc should be centered at its origin so it should be spinning correctly. Any suggestions?
EDIT 2: I received advice saying I should just use the Graphics2D functions for translation and rotation. I changed the AffineTransform statements with this:
g2d.translate(xloc, yloc);
g2d.rotate(rots);
The problem I am having now is that while the star does translate and rotate, it also seems to be making an additional rotation. So what it does now is rotate at its origin and rotates around an additional point that I can't make out while also translating along the y axis. To have a better better understanding of what this looks like, imagine a planet rotating for night and day, also circling a star and then moving in a somewhat straight line.
I have updated the code above to reflect my changes. How can I fix this?

By changing double xloc = 150, yloc = 250; to int xloc = 150, yloc = 250; it fixed the problem. However, everything was moving too fast so I added a timer to slow things down and that was it.
My guess was that the ints were not playing well with the doubles. The shapes had to be in int so by making variables double and applying it to the tranformation, it was messing it up.

Why doesn't BufferedImage of type TYPE_INT_ARGB support the AlphaComposite.CLEAR rule? [duplicate]

I have an off-screen BufferedImage, constructed with the type BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB. It can contain anything, and I'm looking for a way to (fairly efficiently) completely overwrite the image with transparent pixels, resulting in an 'invisible' image.
Using something like this:
(bufimg.getGraphics()).setColor(new Color(10, 10, 100, 0));
(bufimg.getGraphics()).fillRect (0, 0, x, y);
Has no effect. One possible method might be just to write over every pixel in the BufferedImage, but I'm not sure this is the best solution. How would you do it?
[edit]
The Graphics documentation advises against using clearRect for off-screen images, but I have tried it with the same results as above.
[edit2]
After experimenting with MeBigFatGuy's code (thanks!), it does clear an image. But it also stops further painting to that image (or appears to). This code for example:
BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage (600, 600, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics g = img.createGraphics ()
g.drawLine (100, 100, 500, 500);
AlphaComposite composite = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR, 0.0f);
g.setComposite(composite);
g.setColor(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
g.fillRect(0, 0, 600, 600);
graphicsAI.setColor(new Color (10, 10, 10, 255));
graphicsAI.drawLine (100, 100, 500, 500);
Results in nothing seen on the image (I'm drawing the image to a JPanel). Is this something to do with the addition of alpha values?

After you clear the background with the CLEAR composite, you need to set it back to SRC_OVER to draw normally again. ex:
//clear
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR));
g2.fillRect(0,0,256,256);
//reset composite
g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER));
//draw
g2.setPaint(Color.RED);
g2.fillOval(50,50,100,100);

You could get the underlying int[] array of your BufferedImage (make sure to use a compatible format: that is, one that is backed by an int[]).
Then fill the int[] with ints whose alpha value are 0 (0 will do ; )
A System.arraycopy will be very fast.
You have to know that directly writing in the int[] is a lot faster than using setRGB.
Now BufferedImage are a bit of a black art in Java: depending on what you're doing and on which platform/JVM you're doing it, you may lose hardware acceleration (which may never have been there in the first place anyway). In addition to that, you may very well not care at all about hardware acceleration anyway because you may not be working on, say, a game requiring 60+ FPS to be playable etc.
This is a very complicated topic and there's more than one way to skin the BufferedImage cat. As far as I'm concerned I work directly in the int[] when I've got to mess at the pixel level because I think it makes much more sense than trying to use higher-level drawing primitives and I do really don't care about the potential lost of hardware acceleration.

If you cast the Graphics object to a Graphics2D object, you can set a Composite object thru
AlphaComposite composite = AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.CLEAR, 0.0f);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) image.getGraphics();
g2d.setComposite(composite);
g2d.setColor(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
g2d.fillRect(0, 0, 10, 10);

For the sake of completeness, here is a working, testing, and fast function that is cross-platform compliant.
static public BufferedImage createTransparentBufferedImage(int width, int height) {
// BufferedImage is actually already transparent on my system, but that isn't
// guaranteed across platforms.
BufferedImage bufferedImage = new BufferedImage(width, height,
BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics2D graphics = bufferedImage.createGraphics();
// To be sure, we use clearRect, which will (unlike fillRect) totally replace
// the current pixels with the desired color, even if it's fully transparent.
graphics.setBackground(new Color(0, true));
graphics.clearRect(0, 0, width, height);
graphics.dispose();
return bufferedImage;
}

Despite you saying it doesn't work, I used clearRect quite fine.
Clears the specified rectangle by filling it with the background color
of the current drawing surface. This operation does not use the
current paint mode.
Beginning with Java 1.1, the background color of offscreen images may
be system dependent. Applications should use setColor followed by
fillRect to ensure that an offscreen image is cleared to a specific
color.
Fills the specified rectangle. The left and right edges of the
rectangle are at x and x + width - 1. The top and bottom edges are at
y and y + height - 1. The resulting rectangle covers an area width
pixels wide by height pixels tall. The rectangle is filled using the
graphics context's current color.
It is not clearly stated here that one will set the rectangle to the background color, while the other will paint with the foreground color on top of the current colors, but it's what it seems to do.
This is pure speculation, but I think the note about offscreen images relates to Graphics objects obtained from offscreen AWT components, as they are native. I can hardly imagine how the background color of a BufferedImage could be system dependent. As the API doc is for Graphics, this could be a generalization not applying to the BufferedImage case.
My testing code:
JFrame jf = new JFrame();
jf.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage(200, 300, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
Graphics2D g = img.createGraphics();
//fill right half with opaque white
g.setColor(Color.WHITE);
g.fillRect(100, 0, 100, 300);
//leave top third as it is
//fill middle third with transparent color
g.setColor(new Color(0, true));
g.fillRect(0, 100, 200, 100);
//clear bottom third with transparent color
g.setBackground(new Color(0, true));
g.clearRect(0, 200, 200, 100);
g.dispose();
jf.add(new JLabel(new ImageIcon(img)));
jf.pack();
jf.setVisible(true);
the result is two white squares, top right. Where no white was painted, or clearRect was used to overwrite the white, the result is a light gray, the frame's default background color.
Performance-wise, it's regular drawing. arraycopy might well be faster, I don't know, but at least this is likely hardware accelerated just as any other drawing operation.
A plus point versus the array solution is a) no additional memory and b) independence from the color model; this should work no matter how the image was set up.
A minus point versus the Composite solution is that it only allows clearing rectangles; setting the composite allows you to clear any kind of shape.

Setting the background of the graphics Object seems to do the job:
g.setBackground(new Color(0, 0, 0, 0));
(at least when drawing images for scaling purposes)

java graphics - a shape with two colours

(this is java) I have an oval, representing a unit. I want the colour of the oval to represent the unit's health. So a perfectly healthy unit will be all green. and with the unit's health decreasing the oval starts filling with red from the bottom. so, on 50% health the oval would be red in bottom half and green in the top half, and fully red when the unit's dead.
I'm sure the solution here must be obvious and trivial , but I just can't see it.
thanks a lot

You can draw a red oval in the background, then draw a green intersection of an oval and a rectangle, where the rectangle starts below the oval, then moves further to the top to reveal more of the red oval beneath.
You might like to read up on how to construct complex shapes out of primitives here

Override the paint method something like this:
public void paint(Graphics graphics)
{
super.paint(graphics);
Rectangle originalClipBounds = graphics.getClipBounds();
try
{
graphics.clipRect(100, 100, 100, 25);
graphics.setColor(Color.RED);
graphics.fillOval(100, 100, 100, 100);
}
finally
{
graphics.setClip(originalClipBounds);
}
try
{
graphics.clipRect(100, 125, 100, 75);
graphics.setColor(Color.BLUE);
graphics.fillOval(100, 100, 100, 100);
}
finally
{
graphics.setClip(originalClipBounds);
}
}
Might want to enhance it with some double buffering but you get the gist.

You can set the clip on the graphics when you draw the green. Only things within the clip actually get painted.
public void paint(Graphics g) {
super.paint(g);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g.create();
g2d.setColor(Color.RED);
g2d.fillOval(10, 10, 200, 100);
g2d.setColor(Color.GREEN);
g2d.setClip(10, 10, 200, 50);
g2d.fillOval(10, 10, 200, 100);
}