How to clone Image?

Question

I have an Image. I need to make a exactly copy of it and save it to BufferedImage, but there is no Image.clone(). The thing should be inside a calculating loop and so it should be really fast, no pixel-by-pixel copying. What's the best in perfomance method to do this?

Solution 1

You can draw to a buffered image, so make a blank bufferedImage, create a graphics context from it, and draw your original image to it.

BufferedImage copyOfImage = 
   new BufferedImage(widthOfImage, heightOfImage, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
Graphics g = copyOfImage.createGraphics();
g.drawImage(originalImage, 0, 0, null);

Solution 2

There is another way:

BufferedImage copyOfImage = image.getSubimage(0, 0, image.getWidth, image.getHeight);

Comments

[Andrew Thompson]

That would lose transparency. If in doubt, use TYPE_INT_ARGB.

[Cenius]

Hm... This looks faster for me.

[DavidPostill]

Could you please edit your answer to give an explanation of why this code answers the question? Code-only answers are discouraged, because they don't teach the solution.

[Harald K]

No, this won't work, as copyOfImage and image will share backing buffers (it will be a shallow copy). Edits made to one, will be reflected in the other.

[Harald K]

Always remember to dispose() the Graphics object after use!