Building Creative Graphics Applications in JavaFX

[Scott Palmer]

The data flow UI is all custom.  A very early version tried to use the
NetBeans Visual Library, but we it didn't quite have do everything we
needed and we saw that Swing was on the way out so we went with FX.  At
first we embedded a JFXPanel in the Swing app.  Now it is all ported to
JavaFX though it can still run in a Swing mode with the JFXPanel.
The video processing is done with native code, but the data flow and
metadata that enables dynamic workflows is all on the Java side.  We had to
go native to get a decent video preview too, that's the most awkward part
of the UI.  There is no supported mechanism to even get the native window
handle of the stage so the preview window is a horrible hack.  I'm hoping
to get some support in FX to fix that - either access to a OpenGL or
DirectDraw context, or access to the MediaPlayer pipeline (my request for
that dates back to JavaFX 1.0).

Cheers,

Scott

On Wed, Nov 12, 2014 at 12:17 PM, Jeffrey Guenther <
guenther.jeffrey at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Scott,
>
> Thank you for the heads up. The application looks great!
>
> Is dataflow UI custom or are you using an open source library?
> Is the video encoding stuff written in Java too?
>
> Jeff
>
> On Nov 10, 2014, at 7:51 PM, Scott Palmer <swpalmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> JavaFX is up to the task.  I've done an application much like you describe
> (visualizing a bunch of connected nodes).  It's a commercial app (
> http://www.digitalrapids.com/en/Products/Kayak/Page2.aspx)
>
> Though image operations on a raster for such things as a Photoshop-like
> app could benefit a lot from going native.  (There is JAI for that, but it
> deals with AWT images.)
>
> Scott
>
> On Mon, Nov 10, 2014 at 3:04 PM, Jeffrey Guenther <
> guenther.jeffrey at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hello,
>>
>> I have been using JavaFX for the last couple years to build a prototype
>> for my PhD research. I’ve really enjoyed myself as I’ve used it. For the
>> most part, I can implement a UI as fast as I can understand what it needs
>> to do. The scene graph is wonderful.
>>
>> JavaFX is great if you want to build a more traditional application that
>> uses buttons, list views, tables views, etc. What I’m still trying to
>> understand is how well JavaFX can help me build more complex interactive
>> graphics applications. The majority of my work is in data visualization and
>> image creation. I’ve been working some something like NodeBox or
>> Grasshopper for Rhino. I’ll finish the prototype with JavaFX. What I’m
>> pondering is if I can/should keep using JavaFX should I take the project
>> commercial or will it be coding myself into a corner.
>>
>> My question to you is: has any one tried to build, even as a sample
>> project, a small image editor or vector drawing application with JavaFX?
>> What worked well? What kinds of problems did you run into?
>>
>> What has been the experience of the SceneBuilder team? SceneBuilder is
>> probably the most advanced creative tool I’ve seen built with JavaFX so far.
>>
>> I read a post about there being a OpenGL view added to JavaFX one day.
>> What’s the latest on this?
>>
>> I’m very convinced by the work done by Netflix with RxJava and their
>> other projects that Java/JVM applications work great in the enterprise on
>> the server. What I’m wondering is if Java and JavaFX can compete with tools
>> like Apple’s Cocoa or Qt for building creative applications like say the
>> next generations of Photoshop and Illustrator, or some other new innovative
>> way of creating content.
>>
>> Thank you for your time!
>>
>> Jeff
>>
>>
>>
>
>