The BasicStroke class defines a basic set of rendering attributes for the outlines of graphics primitives, which are rendered with a Graphics2D object that has its Stroke attribute set to this BasicStroke. The rendering attributes defined by BasicStroke describe the shape of the mark made by a pen drawn along the outline of a Shape and the decorations applied at the ends and joins of path segments of the Shape. These rendering attributes include:

width

The pen width, measured perpendicularly to the pen trajectory.

end caps

The decoration applied to the ends of unclosed subpaths and dash segments. Subpaths that start and end on the same point are still considered unclosed if they do not have a CLOSE segment. See SEG_CLOSE for more information on the CLOSE segment. The three different decorations are: CAP_BUTT, CAP_ROUND, and CAP_SQUARE.

line joins

The decoration applied at the intersection of two path segments and at the intersection of the endpoints of a subpath that is closed using SEG_CLOSE. The three different decorations are: JOIN_BEVEL, JOIN_MITER, and JOIN_ROUND.

miter limit

The limit to trim a line join that has a JOIN_MITER decoration. A line join is trimmed when the ratio of miter length to stroke width is greater than the miterlimit value. The miter length is the diagonal length of the miter, which is the distance between the inside corner and the outside corner of the intersection. The smaller the angle formed by two line segments, the longer the miter length and the sharper the angle of intersection. The default miterlimit value of 10.0f causes all angles less than 11 degrees to be trimmed. Trimming miters converts the decoration of the line join to bevel.

dash attributes

The definition of how to make a dash pattern by alternating between opaque and transparent sections.

All attributes that specify measurements and distances controlling the shape of the returned outline are measured in the same coordinate system as the original unstroked Shape argument. When a Graphics2D object uses a Stroke object to redefine a path during the execution of one of its draw methods, the geometry is supplied in its original form before the Graphics2D transform attribute is applied. Therefore, attributes such as the pen width are interpreted in the user space coordinate system of the Graphics2D object and are subject to the scaling and shearing effects of the user-space-to-device-space transform in that particular Graphics2D. For example, the width of a rendered shape's outline is determined not only by the width attribute of this BasicStroke, but also by the transform attribute of the Graphics2D object. Consider this code:

// sets the Graphics2D object's Tranform attribute g2d.scale(10, 10); // sets the Graphics2D object's Stroke attribute g2d.setStroke(new BasicStroke(1.5f));

Assuming there are no other scaling transforms added to the Graphics2D object, the resulting line will be approximately 15 pixels wide. As the example code demonstrates, a floating-point line offers better precision, especially when large transforms are used with a Graphics2D object. When a line is diagonal, the exact width depends on how the rendering pipeline chooses which pixels to fill as it traces the theoretical widened outline. The choice of which pixels to turn on is affected by the antialiasing attribute because the antialiasing rendering pipeline can choose to color partially-covered pixels.

For more information on the user space coordinate system and the rendering process, see the Graphics2D class comments.