Java™ Media APIs: Cross-Platform Imaging, Media, and Visualization

Double Buffering

Double buffering is a technique for reducing flicker in animations that at first might seem a little counter intuitive. The problem stems from the fact that when a new animation frame is rendered, it is desirable to first clear the old frame. This causes a flicker to occur. The basic idea of double buffering is to create a virtual screen out of the user's view. At the beginning of this chapter, it was stated that a graphics device could be a screen, printer, file, or memory area. The virtual screen used as the buffer is the primary example of using a memory space as a graphics device. When paint() is called, the clearing and painting of the animation frame can occur on the virtual screen and the resulting rendered image can then ...