Merge two Image.class items into 1 Image.class

Question

I have been researching this for a while on this site and have not came up with exactly what I am looking for. I am working with software in which I do not have the source for must pass that code an Image.class image. I have 2 images that I need to overlay the first one over the second and then pass that combined image to the software I am interfacing with. I must use the Java Language for all code.

Everything I have found is writing the 2 images directly. Is what I am trying to do possible and if so please can you help me get these results? A code stub would be wonderful. I surely appreciate all of the time you take in assisting me.

Answer 1

Basically, you can "paint" one image on to the other...The trick is getting one of them into the correct format...

Image image1 = ...;
Image image2 = ...;
BufferedImage buffer1 = new BufferedImage(image1.getWidth(this), image1.getHeight(this), BufferedImage.TYPE_ARGB);
Graphics2D g = buffer.createGraphics();
g.drawImage(image1, 0, 0, this);
g.drawImage(image2, 0, 0, this);
g.dispose();

This will overlay image2 over image1. You can either assign buffer1 to image1 and pass it to you other class or simple pass buffer1 as BufferedImage extends from java.awt.Image