java - Create an image from a non-visible AWT Component?

Question

I'm trying to create an image (screen-shot) of a non-visible AWT component. I can't use the Robot classes' screen capture functionality because the component is not visible on the screen. Trying to use the following code:

BufferedImage image = new BufferedImage(width, height, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
Graphics2D g = image.createGraphics();
component.paintAll(g);

Works sometimes, but does not work if the component contains things such as a text box or button, or some sort of OpenGL / 3D component (these things are left out of the image!). How can I take a proper screenshot of the whole thing?

Answer 1

(disclamer: woops.. this doesn't seem to work for AWT )-:

I can't believe no one has suggested SwingUtilities.paintComponent or CellRendererPane.paintComponent which are made for this very purpose. From the documentation of the former:

Paints a component to the specified Graphics. This method is primarily useful to render Components that don't exist as part of the visible containment hierarchy, but are used for rendering.

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Here is an example method that paints a non-visible component onto an image:

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;

import javax.swing.*;

public class ComponentPainter {

    public static BufferedImage paintComponent(Component c) {

        // Set it to it's preferred size. (optional)
        c.setSize(c.getPreferredSize());
        layoutComponent(c);

        BufferedImage img = new BufferedImage(c.getWidth(), c.getHeight(),
                BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);

        CellRendererPane crp = new CellRendererPane();
        crp.add(c);
        crp.paintComponent(img.createGraphics(), c, crp, c.getBounds());    
        return img;
    }

    // from the example of user489041
    public static void layoutComponent(Component c) {
        synchronized (c.getTreeLock()) {
            c.doLayout();
            if (c instanceof Container)
                for (Component child : ((Container) c).getComponents())
                    layoutComponent(child);
        }
    }
}

Here is a snippet of code that tests the above class:

JPanel p = new JPanel();
p.add(new JButton("Button 1"));
p.add(new JButton("Button 2"));
p.add(new JCheckBox("A checkbox"));

JPanel inner = new JPanel();
inner.setBorder(BorderFactory.createTitledBorder("A border"));
inner.add(new JLabel("Some label"));
p.add(inner);

BufferedImage img = ComponentPainter.paintComponent(p);

ImageIO.write(img, "png", new File("test.png"));

And here is the resulting image: