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Getting graphics object to draw with buffer strategy

I've made a JFrame with a canvas on it and I want to draw on that canvas. At a later date the canvas will be updating many times a second so I am using a buffer strategy for this. Here is the code:
package mainPackage;
import java.awt.Canvas;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.image.BufferStrategy;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
public class TickPainter {
//just some presets for a window.
public static JFrame makeWindow(String title, int width, int height) {
JFrame mainWindow = new JFrame();
mainWindow.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
mainWindow.setSize(width, height);
mainWindow.setVisible(true);
mainWindow.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
mainWindow.setTitle(title);
return mainWindow;
}
public static void main(String[] args) {
JFrame mainWindow = makeWindow("Practice", 800, 600);
Canvas mainCanvas = new Canvas();
mainWindow.add(mainCanvas);
mainCanvas.setSize(mainWindow.getWidth(), mainWindow.getHeight());
mainCanvas.setBackground(Color.white);
mainCanvas.createBufferStrategy(3);
BufferStrategy bufferStrat = mainCanvas.getBufferStrategy();
Graphics g = bufferStrat.getDrawGraphics();
g.setColor(Color.black);
g.fillRect(250, 250, 250, 250);
g.dispose();
bufferStrat.show();
}
}
The program does not draw the black rectangle as intended, I feel like I've missed something really obvious here and I just can't see it. At the moment the program just makes a blank white canvas. I feel like part of the issue is that the buffer is just passing the frame with the rectangle faster than I can see, but there is no frame to load after that so I don't know why it's doing this.

A BufferStrategy has a number of initial requirements which must be meet before it can be rendered to. Also, because of the nature of how it works, you might need to repeat a paint phases a number of times before it's actually accepted by the hardware layer.
I recommend going through the JavaDocs and tutorial, they provide invaluable examples into how you're suppose to use a BufferStrategy
The following example uses a Canvas as the base component and sets up a rendering loop within a custom Thread. It's very basic, but shows the basic concepts you'd need to implement...
import java.awt.Canvas;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.image.BufferStrategy;
import java.util.concurrent.atomic.AtomicBoolean;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Test();
}
public Test() {
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
TestCanvas canvas = new TestCanvas();
JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.add(canvas);
frame.setTitle("Test");
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
canvas.start();
}
});
}
public class TestCanvas extends Canvas {
private Thread thread;
private AtomicBoolean keepRendering = new AtomicBoolean(true);
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return new Dimension(200, 200);
}
public void stop() {
if (thread != null) {
keepRendering.set(false);
try {
thread.join();
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
}
}
public void start() {
if (thread != null) {
stop();
}
keepRendering.set(true);
thread = new Thread(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
createBufferStrategy(3);
do {
BufferStrategy bs = getBufferStrategy();
while (bs == null) {
System.out.println("get buffer");
bs = getBufferStrategy();
}
do {
// The following loop ensures that the contents of the drawing buffer
// are consistent in case the underlying surface was recreated
do {
// Get a new graphics context every time through the loop
// to make sure the strategy is validated
System.out.println("draw");
Graphics graphics = bs.getDrawGraphics();
// Render to graphics
// ...
graphics.setColor(Color.RED);
graphics.fillRect(0, 0, 100, 100);
// Dispose the graphics
graphics.dispose();
// Repeat the rendering if the drawing buffer contents
// were restored
} while (bs.contentsRestored());
System.out.println("show");
// Display the buffer
bs.show();
// Repeat the rendering if the drawing buffer was lost
} while (bs.contentsLost());
System.out.println("done");
try {
Thread.sleep(100);
} catch (InterruptedException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
} while (keepRendering.get());
}
});
thread.start();
}
}
}
Remember, the point of BufferStrategy is to give you full control over the painting process, so it works outside the normal painting process generally implemented by AWT and Swing
"At a later date the canvas will be updating many times a second so I am using a buffer strategy for this" - Before going down the "direct to hardware" solution, I'd consider using a Swing Timer and the normal painting process to see how well it works

How to overwrite a BufferedImage drawn to JPanel outside PaintComponent() with getGraphics()

I am working on a simple 2D game. Each tick, I want to check an effects queue that will start a thread for a certain effect(fading transitions, audio fade in and out, etc). For example, pressing "Play" on the menu screen will add a "FadeOut" message to this queue, which will be processed and start a thread to draw a black rectangle with an increasing alpha value over my GamePanel.
I'm overriding paintComponent() and sending my Graphics object to my GameStateManager, which passes along the Graphics object to the current states' draw(). I currently don't have an effects state (which maybe I should) to route the paintComponent() graphics object to, but I do pass my gamepanel to my effects thread, where I can use getGraphics() to draw on it. Drawing a rectangle to the GamePanel directly just causes flickering, as the gameloop is still rendering the game.
I found I can draw a black rectangle with increasing alpha to a BufferedImage, set the composite to AlphaComposite.Src (which causes the new draw to replace the old) then draw the BufferedImage over the game panel. The problem is the BufferedImages drawn to the game panel don't get overridden each draw, so the fade out happens really quickly because these black BufferedImages of various alphas just stack on each other.
I wrote this short program to test composite settings and see what is getting overridden. All drawing is done in the draw(), which would be my run() in the effects thread.
import java.awt.AlphaComposite;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
public class ScratchPad extends JPanel implements Runnable
{
private JFrame oFrame = null;
private Thread oGameThread = null;
private Graphics2D oPanelGraphics = null;
private Graphics2D oImageGraphics = null;
private BufferedImage oImage = null;
public static void main(String args[]) throws Exception
{
new ScratchPad();
}
public ScratchPad()
{
createFrame();
initPanel();
addAndShowComponents();
oGameThread = new Thread(this, "Game_Loop");
oGameThread.start();
}
private void addAndShowComponents()
{
oFrame.add(this);
oFrame.setVisible(true);
}
private void initPanel()
{
this.setOpaque(true);
this.setBackground(Color.cyan);
}
private void createFrame()
{
oFrame = new JFrame("Fade");
oFrame.setSize(700, 300);
oFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
oFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
}
public void run()
{
oImage = new BufferedImage(200, 200, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_ARGB);
while(true)
{
try
{
draw();
Thread.sleep(100);
}
catch(InterruptedException e)
{
}
}
}
private void draw()
{
oPanelGraphics = (Graphics2D)this.getGraphics();
oImageGraphics = oImage.createGraphics();
oImageGraphics.setComposite(AlphaComposite.Src);
oImageGraphics.setColor(new Color(0,0,0,90));
oImageGraphics.fillRect(0, 0, oImage.getWidth(), oImage.getHeight());
oPanelGraphics.drawImage(oImage, 10, 10, null);
oImageGraphics.setColor(new Color(0,0,0,60));
oImageGraphics.fillRect(0, 0, oImage.getWidth(), oImage.getHeight());
oPanelGraphics.drawImage(oImage, 220, 10, null);
oImageGraphics.setColor(new Color(0,0,0,30));
oImageGraphics.fillRect(0, 0, oImage.getWidth(), oImage.getHeight());
oPanelGraphics.drawImage(oImage, 430, 10, null);
// Drawing this image over location of first image, should overwrite first
// after setting composite to 'Src'
oPanelGraphics.setComposite(AlphaComposite.Src);
oImageGraphics.setColor(new Color(0,0,0,10));
oImageGraphics.fillRect(0, 0, oImage.getWidth(), oImage.getHeight());
oPanelGraphics.drawImage(oImage, 10, 10, null);
oImageGraphics.dispose();
oPanelGraphics.dispose();
}
} // end class
What's interesting is setting the composite on 'oPanelGraphics' causes any alpha to the BufferedImage to go away, resulting in a fully opaque black image being drawn over the image that was previously there. Even setting the color to something other than black doesn't have an effect.
What's also interesting is setting the composite for the BufferedImage to:
oImageGraphics.setComposite(AlphaComposite.SrcIn);
causes nothing to be shown. The Oracle documentation on compositing graphics in Java2D states this for 'SrcIn':
"If pixels in the source and the destination overlap, only the source pixels in the overlapping area are rendered."
So, I would expect this to have the same behavior I get with AlphaComposite.Src.
Maybe someone out there can shed some light on whats going on with these composites, and how I could achieve my desired effect.

There are a number issues with what you "seem" to be trying to do
Don't call getGraphics on a component. This can return null and only returns a snapshot of what was last painted during a Swing paint cycle. Anything you paint to it will be erased on the next paint cycle
You should also never dispose of Graphics context you did not create, doing so could effect other components that are painted by Swing
Painting is compounding, this means that painting to the same Graphics context (or BufferedImage) over and over again, will continue to apply those changes over the top of what was previously painted
You also don't seem to have a concept of how animation should work. Instead of trying to paint your fade effect in a single pass, where the results can't be applied to the screen, you need to apply a phase on each cycle and allow that to be updated to the screen before the next pass runs.
The following is a really basic example of what I'm talking about. It takes a "base" image (this could be the "base" state of the game, but I've used a static image) and the paints effects over the top.
import java.awt.AlphaComposite;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import java.util.Iterator;
import java.util.List;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;
public class Test {
public static void main(String[] args) {
new Test();
}
public Test() {
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
#Override
public void run() {
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
} catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.add(new TestPane());
frame.pack();
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setVisible(true);
}
});
}
public class TestPane extends JPanel {
private Engine engine;
private Image frame;
public TestPane() {
engine = new Engine();
engine.setEngineListener(new EngineListener() {
#Override
public void updateDidOccur(Image img) {
frame = img;
repaint();
}
});
engine.start();
addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
#Override
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e) {
engine.addEffect(new FadeOutEffect(Color.BLACK));
}
});
}
#Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
return engine.getSize();
}
#Override
protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
if (frame != null) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g.create();
g2d.drawImage(frame, 0, 0, null);
g2d.dispose();
}
}
}
public interface EngineListener {
public void updateDidOccur(Image img);
}
public class Engine {
// This is the "base" image, without effects
private BufferedImage base;
private Timer timer;
private EngineListener listener;
private List<Effect> effects = new ArrayList<Effect>(25);
public Engine() {
try {
base = ImageIO.read(new File("/Volumes/Big Fat Extension/Dropbox/MegaTokyo/megatokyo_omnibus_1_3_cover_by_fredrin-d4oupef 50%.jpg"));
} catch (IOException ex) {
ex.printStackTrace();
}
timer = new Timer(10, new ActionListener() {
#Override
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
int width = base.getWidth();
int height = base.getHeight();
BufferedImage frame = new BufferedImage(width, height, base.getType());
Graphics2D g2d = frame.createGraphics();
g2d.drawImage(base, 0, 0, null);
Iterator<Effect> it = effects.iterator();
while (it.hasNext()) {
Effect effect = it.next();
if (!effect.applyEffect(g2d, width, height)) {
it.remove();
}
}
g2d.dispose();
if (listener != null) {
listener.updateDidOccur(frame);
}
}
});
}
public void start() {
timer.start();
}
public void stop() {
timer.stop();
}
public void addEffect(Effect effect) {
effects.add(effect);
}
public void setEngineListener(EngineListener listener) {
this.listener = listener;
}
public Dimension getSize() {
return base == null ? new Dimension(200, 200) : new Dimension(base.getWidth(), base.getHeight());
}
}
public interface Effect {
public boolean applyEffect(Graphics2D context, int width, int height);
}
public class FadeOutEffect implements Effect {
private int tick = 0;
private Color fadeToColor;
public FadeOutEffect(Color fadeToColor) {
this.fadeToColor = fadeToColor;
}
#Override
public boolean applyEffect(Graphics2D context, int width, int height) {
tick++;
float alpha = (float) tick / 100.0f;
if (alpha > 1.0) {
return false;
}
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) context.create();
g2d.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER, alpha));
g2d.setColor(fadeToColor);
g2d.fillRect(0, 0, width, height);
g2d.dispose();
return true;
}
}
}
Remember, every effect or change should be applied within the same "main loop", this means you shouldn't have multiple threads, in fact, since Swing is not thread safe, you should avoid having any additional threads if possible. This example make use of a Swing Timer to act as the "main loop" because the ActionListers actionPerformed method is called within the context of the EDT, making it safe to update the UI from. It also provides a simple synchronisation method, as the UI can't be painted while the actionPerformed method is been called

Relation and implementation of Graphics and paint? [duplicate]

I tried few source codes of drawing in java and they were working fine, but when i tried to make one of my own I could not get the paint(Grahpics g) method to work! I looked again at the codes I have and checked some of the tutorials in Oracle's pages but i don't seem to be able to know why it would not work.
can someone please check it and tell me what is wrong here??
main method:
public class main
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{
new board();
}
}
board:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.KeyAdapter;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.Timer;
public class board implements ActionListener
{
private JFrame f = new JFrame("Speedy");
private JPanel gamePanel = new JPanel();
private Image bg = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("road.png")).getImage();
private Timer t;
private car myCar = new car();
public board()
{
t = new Timer(50,this);
t.start();
gamePanel.setSize(600,400);
gamePanel.setDoubleBuffered(true);
gamePanel.setFocusable(true);
gamePanel.addKeyListener(new TAdapter());
f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
f.add(gamePanel,BorderLayout.CENTER);
//f.addKeyListener(new TAdapter());
f.setBounds(200,100,600,400);
f.setVisible(true);
f.revalidate();
f.repaint();
}
public void paint(Graphics g) {
gamePanel.paint(g);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
g2d.drawImage(bg,0,0,null);
g2d.drawImage(myCar.getImg(), myCar.xPos, myCar.yPos, null);
System.out.println("Painted");
g.dispose();
}
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
{
gamePanel.repaint();
//System.out.println("Painting..");
}
private class TAdapter extends KeyAdapter {
public void keyReleased(KeyEvent e) {}
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e)
{
myCar.keyPressed(e);
System.out.println("You pressed: "+e);
}
}
}
car.java:
import java.awt.Image;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.util.ArrayList;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon
;
public class car
{
private Image image;
public int xPos,yPos;
public car()
{
image = new ImageIcon(this.getClass().getResource("car.png")).getImage();
xPos = 300;
yPos = 200;
System.out.println(image.getWidth(null));
}
public Image getImg() {return image;}
public void move() {}
public void keyPressed(KeyEvent e)
{
int key = e.getKeyCode();
if (key == KeyEvent.VK_LEFT) xPos -= 1;
if (key == KeyEvent.VK_RIGHT)xPos += 1;
if (key == KeyEvent.VK_UP) yPos -= 1;
if (key == KeyEvent.VK_DOWN) yPos += 1;
}
}
There are no errors, it shows me the width of the image which is right, also the timer triggers the ActionListener, also KeyListener is working, but the images would not draw! the paint(Graphics g) method just does not want to get triggered!
Googling it did not help.. I thought this would be a common problem but nobody has the problem I have, all solutions failed me.
help please?
If someone can explain it would be most appreciated!

Your class Board does not extend the JPanel class. So the paint() method is never called by the Swing.
Also, the statement gamePanel.repaint() will only execute the default JPanel paint() method of gamePanel. Instead you want the overridden paint method to be executed, so might want to do this:
public class Board extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
....
public void paint(Graphics g) {
this.paint(g);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
g2d.drawImage(bg,0,0,null);
g2d.drawImage(myCar.getImg(), myCar.xPos, myCar.yPos, null);
System.out.println("Painted");
g2d.dispose();
}
....
}
Replace your action functionality with this:
public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
this.repaint();
}
Alternative solution:
If you do not want your Board class to extend JPanel, you can also override the paint() method of the gamePanel as you initialize it.
gamePanel = new JPanel() {
#Override
public void paint(Graphics g) {
this.paint(g);
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D)g;
g2d.drawImage(bg,0,0,null);
g2d.drawImage(myCar.getImg(), myCar.xPos, myCar.yPos, null);
g2d.dispose();
}
};
However, I would recommend the first solution rather than this one with anonymous classes.

When you call repaint on some container, then what happens is that Swing looks at all the components in that container and calls their paint method.
However, your board class (you should be calling it Board, by the way. Class names should always start with a capital) is not a component of your JFrame. When you call repaint, Swing will attempt to call the paint method of the JPanel that is a component of that JFrame. But you didn't override that method. You just added a paint method to your board, and board is not a component of the JFrame.
For this reason, usually you are supposed to create a class that extnds JPanel or some other component, and then add the current object of that class as a component to the JFrame. This way, your paint method will be called when the JFrame is repainted.

Your "main" class (board) should extend JPanel to work as expected.
With your way, paint would never be called. it acts like any normal self-written function.
If you want to keep things as they are, you can do something ike that:
gamePanel = new JPanel()
{
#Override
public void paint(Graphics g)
{
//your code here
}
};
Please keep in mind that a Class name should start with a capital letter. It won't make any errors but it is a naming convention as you can see here:
http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/codeconventions-135099.html

Can't Load Image in Java

I want to Load an Image and use it as the Back Ground for my JPanel, This Code doesn't give me any errors or results.
I also Tried using BufferedImage and setting the File location to the path of the image, but i got an error "Can't read input file!", After some research i found this method and an easier alternative.
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.*;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
public class drawArea extends JPanel {
public drawArea(){
init();
}
private void init(){
setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 570, 570 ) );
setVisible(true);
}
private void initializeGrid(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
Image img = new ImageIcon("/LinearEquations/src/exit.png").getImage();
g2d.drawImage(img, 0, 0, this);
}
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
initializeGrid(g);
}
}
Thanks in Advance

Never ever read in an image in the paint or paintComponent method. Understand that this method largely determines the perceived responsiveness of your program, and if you slow it down by needlessly repeatedly reading in images, your users won't be happy.
Your problem is likely one of using the wrong relative path. I recommend that you try to read your image in in the init() method and storing it as a variable. Don't read it in as a File as you're doing but rather as a InputStream obtained from a class resource.
e.g.,
public class DrawArea extends JPanel {
// we've no idea if this is the correct path just yet.
private static final String IMG_PATH = "/exit.png";
public DrawArea() { // better have it throw the proper exceptions!
setPreferredSize( new Dimension( 570, 570 ) ); // not sure about this either
// setVisible(true); // no need for this
img = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResourceAsStream(IMG_PATH));
}
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
if (img != null) {
g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, this);
}
}

repaint not being called

Hi I have googled and can't figured out why my paintComp method isnt being called
I have the following code
package com.vf.zepto.view;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.FileInputStream;
import java.io.FileNotFoundException;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.util.Properties;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;
import com.vf.zepto.view.interfaces.ProcessorPanel;
public class CountryDetailsPanel extends JPanel implements ProcessorPanel, Runnable {
private GridBagConstraints c = new GridBagConstraints();
private String countryName;
private Properties prop = new Properties();
private BufferedImage image;
public CountryDetailsPanel() {
try {
prop.load(new FileInputStream("country.props"));
} catch (FileNotFoundException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
} catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
//this.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
c.gridx = 0;
c.gridy = 0;
c.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;
c.insets = new Insets(5, 5, 5, 5);
this.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(200, 200));
}
#Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
try {
if(countryName != null) {
String asset = prop.getProperty(countryName+".flag");
if(!asset.equals(null)) {
image = ImageIO.read(new File(asset));
g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
}
}
}
catch (IOException e) {
e.printStackTrace();
}
}
#Override
public void updateDetails(Object o) {
countryName = (String)o;
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(this);
}
#Override
public void run() {
this.repaint();
}
}
and when calling this.repaint() expect the paintComponent method to be called but for love nor money it isnt.
Have tried to force it to use the EDT incase that was the issue but its not.
any ideas?

You should never call paintComponent() the repaint() method consolidates all requests to change the component (there may be several repaint requests between screen refreshes). It adds an update request to the GUI event queue so that the update will be properly coordinated with other GUI actions (Swing and AWT are not thread-safe). This update request, when processed, calls update(), which calls paint(), which calls your paintComponent()
Why have this:
#Override
public void run() {
this.repaint();
}
It does not seem of any use (creating a new thread to repaint once? Not to mention the thread is not on EDT rather call repaint() on the JPanel instance (if modified externally other than that you shouldnt even worry). However to start a thread which modifeis UI componets use s SwingTimer/SwingWorker or SwingUtilities#invokeXXX()
This might not be related but in your code I see this:
if(!asset.equals(null)) {
image = ImageIO.read(new File(asset));
g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
}
dont use equals() to compare to a null value as this might throw a NullPointerException because you are attempting to
deference a null pointer, for example this code throws a NPE:
String s=null;
if(!s.equals(null)) {//throws NPE
System.out.println("Here");//is never printed
}
Also as mKorbel has said (+1 to him) dont do long running tasks in paintComponent() declare your Image globally, assign it in the constructor and then use it in paintComponent(). F.i
rather do:
public class TestPanel extends JPanel {
private Image image;
public TestPanel() {
image = ImageIO.read(new File(asset));
}
#Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
if(asset!=null) {
g.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
}
}
}

Do not load image or another hard or long running code in paintComponent
Load this Object as a local variable and only one time
paintComponent() is called
implicitly, when JComponent requires repaint, or
explicitly, for example on every of mouse event if one were to invoke paintComponent() from a MouseMotionListener.
If there is animation, then to use Swing Timer and call repaint().