The user must specify the circle controlling the gradient pattern, which is described by a center point and a radius. The user can also specify a separate focus point within that circle, which controls the location of the first color of the gradient. By default the focus is set to be the center of the circle.

This paint will map the first color of the gradient to the focus point, and the last color to the perimeter of the circle, interpolating smoothly for any in-between colors specified by the user. Any line drawn from the focus point to the circumference will thus span all the gradient colors.

Specifying a focus point outside of the circle's radius will result in the focus being set to the intersection point of the focus-center line and the perimeter of the circle.

The user must provide an array of floats specifying how to distribute the colors along the gradient. These values should range from 0.0 to 1.0 and act like keyframes along the gradient (they mark where the gradient should be exactly a particular color).

In the event that the user does not set the first keyframe value equal to 0 and/or the last keyframe value equal to 1, keyframes will be created at these positions and the first and last colors will be replicated there. So, if a user specifies the following arrays to construct a gradient:

     {Color.BLUE, Color.RED}, {.3f, .7f}
 

     {Color.BLUE, Color.BLUE, Color.RED, Color.RED}, {0f, .3f, .7f, 1f}
 

The user may also select what action the RadialGradientPaint should take when filling color outside the bounds of the circle's radius. If no cycle method is specified, NO_CYCLE will be chosen by default, which means the the last keyframe color will be used to fill the remaining area.

The colorSpace parameter allows the user to specify in which colorspace the interpolation should be performed, default sRGB or linearized RGB.

The following code demonstrates typical usage of RadialGradientPaint, where the center and focus points are the same:

     Point2D center = new Point2D.Float(50, 50);
     float radius = 25;
     float[] dist = {0.0f, 0.2f, 1.0f};
     Color[] colors = {Color.RED, Color.WHITE, Color.BLUE};
     RadialGradientPaint p =
         new RadialGradientPaint(center, radius, dist, colors);
 

This image demonstrates the example code above, with default (centered) focus for each of the three cycle methods:

It is also possible to specify a non-centered focus point, as in the following code:

     Point2D center = new Point2D.Float(50, 50);
     float radius = 25;
     Point2D focus = new Point2D.Float(40, 40);
     float[] dist = {0.0f, 0.2f, 1.0f};
     Color[] colors = {Color.RED, Color.WHITE, Color.BLUE};
     RadialGradientPaint p =
         new RadialGradientPaint(center, radius, focus,
                                 dist, colors,
                                 CycleMethod.NO_CYCLE);
 

This image demonstrates the previous example code, with non-centered focus for each of the three cycle methods: