Headless graphics rendering

I'm new to JMonkey Engine and would like to use it to render a 3D "model" in 2D image. After reading a lot of document, javadoc, forum posts and jmetest, it seems it should be possible to build my scene graph and render as BufferedImage. I would like to the opinion from you guys to make sure it's really doable and I'm on a right track.


  • DisplaySystem: follow the Applet example to create a DisplaySystem. And create a headless window.
  • Scene: Create my Scene / Scene Graph
  • Renderer: Use DisplaySystem to get a LWJGLRenderer, draw the Scene, and follow the takeScreenShot and grabScreenContents methods to get the buffer, and I'll copy to BufferedImage myself



    Is the steps above making sense?



    I'm going to try it out anyway. Thank you very much.



    p.s. I notice there is a BinaryExporter but it looks like just for exporting to OutputStream for importing later, but not export to a image outputstream.

maybe its too late but take a look at ImposterNode and TestImposterNode.