SodhanaLibrary

We can select rectangular area of an image using  Image editing tools. Here in this article, I am going to implement this feature with Java.

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Program Flow

1. Create one panel to display only image using graphics
2. Implement mousepressed, mousereleased and mousedrag events and create create rectangular shapes based on these mouse events
3. Get sub image of main image with coordinates from above selection
4. Update selected area panel with above sub image 

ImagePanel.java

This class extends JPanel. It implements mouse events and it is responsible for user selection of image. Whenever user select rectangular area, it will trigger main panel to update selected region.

import java.awt.AlphaComposite;
import java.awt.BasicStroke;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Graphics;
import java.awt.Graphics2D;
import java.awt.Point;
import java.awt.RenderingHints;
import java.awt.Shape;
import java.awt.event.MouseAdapter;
import java.awt.event.MouseEvent;
import java.awt.event.MouseMotionAdapter;
import java.awt.geom.Rectangle2D;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class ImagePanel extends JPanel {
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private BufferedImage image;
    private Shape shape = null;
    Point startDrag, endDrag;

    public ImagePanel( String inputImage, MainFrame mf1) throws IOException {
        final MainFrame mf = mf1;
        image = ImageIO.read(new File(inputImage));
        this.addMouseListener(new MouseAdapter() {
            public void mousePressed(MouseEvent e) {
                startDrag = new Point(e.getX(), e.getY());
                endDrag = startDrag;
                repaint();
            }

            public void mouseReleased(MouseEvent e) {
                if(endDrag!=null && startDrag!=null) {
                    try {
                        shape = makeRectangle(startDrag.x, startDrag.y, e.getX(),
                                e.getY());
                        mf.updateSelectedRegion(image.getSubimage(startDrag.x, startDrag.y, e.getX()-startDrag.x, e.getY()-startDrag.y));   
                        startDrag = null;
                        endDrag = null;
                        repaint();
                    } catch (Exception e1) {
                        e1.printStackTrace();
                    }   
                }
            }
        });

        this.addMouseMotionListener(new MouseMotionAdapter() {
            public void mouseDragged(MouseEvent e) {
                endDrag = new Point(e.getX(), e.getY());
                repaint();
            }   
        });
    }

    
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        Graphics2D g2 = (Graphics2D) g;
        g2.drawImage(image, 0, 0, null);
        g2.setRenderingHint(RenderingHints.KEY_ANTIALIASING,
                RenderingHints.VALUE_ANTIALIAS_ON);
        
        g2.setStroke(new BasicStroke(2));
        g2.setComposite(AlphaComposite.getInstance(AlphaComposite.SRC_OVER,
                0.50f));

        if (shape != null) {
            g2.setPaint(Color.BLACK);
            g2.draw(shape);
            g2.setPaint(Color.YELLOW);
            g2.fill(shape);
        }
        
        if (startDrag != null && endDrag != null) {
            g2.setPaint(Color.LIGHT_GRAY);
            Shape r = makeRectangle(startDrag.x, startDrag.y, endDrag.x,
                    endDrag.y);
            g2.draw(r);
        }
        
    }

    private Rectangle2D.Float makeRectangle(int x1, int y1, int x2, int y2) {
        return new Rectangle2D.Float(Math.min(x1, x2), Math.min(y1, y2),
                Math.abs(x1 - x2), Math.abs(y1 - y2));
    }
    
}