JAI and Image Processing in Java¶

| java |

I have minimal experience with Image Processing and when I’m talking about it I mean:

read/write different image formats (jpg, png, tiff, ice, etc.)
flip, rotate image
crop and clip image by defined path
convert image’s color (e.g. RGB to gray scale)
reduce image size
find edges
image histograms and color counting
different operations (e.g. AND, OR and XOR)
read image meta info

Of course, I don’t want to waist time implementing all these by myself, because it’s basic operation in Image Processing (IP) domain. And I believe that all these tasks are pretty much trivial for any engineer who’s working in Image Processing.

As usual I have strict restriction regarding the licence of selected library (which can be used in any commercial product).

So, I’ve started googling. Here is the initial (and filtered) results:

Java Advanced Imaging (JAI) - Sun Binary Code License
ImageJ - Open Source, Public Domain
Apache Commons Imaging - Apache License 2.0
JAITools - Simplified BSD License
Marvin - LGPL License

JAI¶

This library was developed by SUN. Unfortunately, it’s not supported anymore. But, it’s very powerful and has nice facilities.

JAI is available for Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, and Solaris, and takes advantage of native acceleration when available. However, you can use the JAI libraries on any platform if you add the following JAR files to your classpath:

jai_core.jar and jai_codec.jar (http://download.java.net/media/jai/builds/release/1_1_3/)
jai_imageio.jar (http://download.java.net/media/jai-imageio/builds/release/1.1/)

JAI Tutorials, Guides, Sources¶

Java Advanced Imaging API FAQ
Java Image Processing Cookbook, by Rafael Santos it’s very cool book with tons of samples
Programming in Java™ Advanced Imaging book. Just “google” it.

Also, you should check the JAI sources. Here is the master JAI project on java.net with several sub-projects:

JAI Licenses. It’s very tricky question. Here is the quote from java.net:

As far as I know, the libraries from JAI and JAI Image I/O Tools can be
bundled with a commercial product or can be downloaded on the fly using
the Java Web Start technology.
You might like to take a look at how people have been using JAI and JAI
Image I/O Tools:
http://java.sun.com/products/java-media/jai/success/
As for commercial license, you might like to read the LICENSE and README
files for the binaries:
http://download.java.net/media/jai/builds/release/1_1_3/LICENSE-jai.txt
http://download.java.net/media/jai/builds/release/1_1_3/DISTRIBUTIONREAD…
http://download.java.net/media/jai-imageio/builds/release/1.1/LICENSE-ja…
http://download.java.net/media/jai-imageio/builds/release/1.1/DISTRIBUTI…
and the licenses for the source code (if you make your own build of JAI):
_https://jai.dev.java.net/#Licenses
https://jai-imageio.dev.java.net/index.html#Licenses

I’m not sure whether you can include this library into your commercial project. You should answer on this question by yourself.

ImageJ¶

It’s a very popular application/library in Java community. I’ve considered it also. This library has very big community. Also, it has many plugins. Documentation (User Guide, tutorials, wiki, FAQ, etc) are located in one place, easy to find. But, I wouldn’t use ImageJ in case of simple image processing operations.

Other Libraries¶

I’ve reviewed the mentioned above other libraries and I must say they have nice features also. But they are too heavy (as well as ImageJ) for the tasks I’ve been trying to accomplish.

Summary¶

JAI isn’t maintained by Oracle. You should be careful when including it in commercial product
ImageJ, Commons Imaging, JAITools , and Marvin are providing huge set of IP facilities, but it might be redundant in your case.
Plain Java core image library can solve almost all your needs, except TIFF/PDF file processing.
TIFF/PDF file processing should be done by 3d-party libraries (e.g. iText, JAI).