Re: Graphics - how to show partial progress.

I am writing a graphics program that calculates individual colour
values for every point, hence it runs rather slowly as the
calculations for each point are somewhat complex. What I want to be
able to do is to show progress-so-far every so often, so the user gets
to see something, rather than a long wait with a blank screen. I know
I can do an updating % progress bar, but I would rather actually show
the progress on the screen so they can see a partial picture while the
next part is being calculated.

I am new to Java graphics, so I am probably missing some obvious
technique here; my google-fu has not found anything relevant to what I
want. In other languages I have used a technique with two Graphics
objects, updating one while displaying the other, but in this case I
cannot find a Component.setGraphics() method. Would it be possible to
do a similar thing with two separate JPanel objects?

The partial code below shows what I am trying, I need a "display and
continue calculating" function that I can call at intervals while
calculating points.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks in advance,

rossum