The JCanvas class is the center-piece of this package. The canvas is composed of a canvas pane, which in turn is composed of one or more layers. Each layer may contain arbitrary graphics, although commonly at least one layer is an instance of a "figure layer" class that contains figure objects. The main role of the JCanvas class is to provide the physical screen space on which layers draw themselves, and to interface to the Swing component hierarchy.
This architecture allows a graphics developer to write code for a pane and a set of layers, without being concerned about whether the pane and its layers will be directly contained by a JCanvas or within some other layer. For example, it will be possible for a visualization component to be "embedded" in a larger component.
@version $Id: JCanvas.java,v 1.27 2005/07/08 19:54:46 cxh Exp $
@author John Reekie
@Pt.AcceptedRating Yellow