My only fear of using BufferedImage object is that for a very large image of say 60000x32000 it will result in JVM shutting down with OOM on a limited JVM heap space. However, JavaDocs of ImageIO.read method says something about "control caching".
What is control caching in this context?
Does that mean ImageIO.read uses caching of image on disk for large image?
Refer to JavaDocs and ImageIO.read method below:
/**
* Returns a <code>BufferedImage</code> as the result of decoding
* a supplied <code>File</code> with an <code>ImageReader</code>
* chosen automatically from among those currently registered.
* The <code>File</code> is wrapped in an
* <code>ImageInputStream</code>. If no registered
* <code>ImageReader</code> claims to be able to read the
* resulting stream, <code>null</code> is returned.
*
* <p> The current cache settings from <code>getUseCache</code>and
* <code>getCacheDirectory</code> will be used to control caching in the
* <code>ImageInputStream</code> that is created.
*
* <p> Note that there is no <code>read</code> method that takes a
* filename as a <code>String</code>; use this method instead after
* creating a <code>File</code> from the filename.
*
* <p> This method does not attempt to locate
* <code>ImageReader</code>s that can read directly from a
* <code>File</code>; that may be accomplished using
* <code>IIORegistry</code> and <code>ImageReaderSpi</code>.
*
* @param input a <code>File</code> to read from.
*
* @return a <code>BufferedImage</code> containing the decoded
* contents of the input, or <code>null</code>.
*
* @exception IllegalArgumentException if <code>input</code> is
* <code>null</code>.
* @exception IOException if an error occurs during reading.
*/
public static BufferedImage read(File input) throws IOException {
if (input == null) {
throw new IllegalArgumentException("input == null!");
}
if (!input.canRead()) {
throw new IIOException("Can't read input file!");
}
ImageInputStream stream = createImageInputStream(input);
if (stream == null) {
throw new IIOException("Can't create an ImageInputStream!");
}
BufferedImage bi = read(stream);
if (bi == null) {
stream.close();
}
return bi;
}
