Controlling Rendering Quality

Use the Graphics2D class rendering hints attribute to specify whether you want objects to be rendered as quickly as possible or whether you prefer that the rendering quality be as high as possible.

To set or change the rendering hints attribute in the Graphics2D context, construct a RenderingHints object and pass it into Graphics2D by using the setRenderingHints method. If you just want to set one hint, you can call Graphics2D setRenderingHint and specify the key-value pair for the hint you want to set. (The key-value pairs are defined in the RenderingHints class.)

For example, to set a preference for antialiasing to be used if possible, you could use setRenderingHint:

   public void paint (graphics g){
   	Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D)g;
	RenderingHints rh = new RenderingHints(
		RenderingHints.KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING,
		RenderingHints.VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON);
	g2.setRenderingHints(rh);
   ...
   }
	

RenderingHints supports the following types of hints:

Hint	Key	Values
Antialiasing	KEY_ANTIALIASING	VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON VALUE_ANTIALIAS_OFF VALUE_ANTIALIAS_DEFAULT
Alpha Interpolation	KEY_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION	VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_QUALITY VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_SPEED VALUE_ALPHA_INTERPOLATION_DEFAULT
Color Rendering	KEY_COLOR_RENDERING	VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_QUALITY VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_SPEED VALUE_COLOR_RENDER_DEFAULT
Dithering	KEY_DITHERING	VALUE_DITHER_DISABLE VALUE_DITHER_ENABLE VALUE_DITHER_DEFAULT
Fractional Text Metrics	KEY_FRACTIONALMETRICS	VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_ON VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_OFF VALUE_FRACTIONALMETRICS_DEFAULT
Image Interpolation	KEY_INTERPOLATION	VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BICUBIC VALUE_INTERPOLATION_BILINEAR VALUE_INTERPOLATION_NEAREST_NEIGHBOR
Rendering	KEY_RENDERING	VALUE_RENDER_QUALITY VALUE_RENDER_SPEED VALUE_RENDER_DEFAULT
Stroke Normalization Control	KEY_STROKE_CONTROL	VALUE_STROKE_NORMALIZE VALUE_STROKE_DEFAULT VALUE_STROKE_PURE
Text Antialiasing	KEY_TEXT_ANTIALIASING	VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_ON VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_OFF VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_DEFAULT VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_GASP VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_HRGB VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_HBGR VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_VRGB VALUE_TEXT_ANTIALIAS_LCD_VBGR
LCD Text Contrast	KEY_TEXT_LCD_CONTRAST	Values should be a positive integer in the range 100 to 250. A lower value (eg 100) corresponds to higher contrast text when displaying dark text on a light background. A higher value (eg 200) corresponds to lower contrast text when displaying dark text on a light background. A typical useful value is in the narrow range 140-180. If no value is specified, a system or implementation default value will be applied.

When a hint is set to default, the platform rendering default is used.