BufferedImage Problem

Question

This is kind of difficult to explain, but I'll do my best. It's a simple problem though.
So I have a class, let's call it ImagePanel. Quite simply, it's a panel that loads an image and then loads a BufferedImage from that image. It uses MediaTracker and the waitForID function to allow the image to load before drawing it to the panel.
That's fine and dandy. Works like a charm.
Now in this same class, I have a function that returns the BufferedImage, allowing it to be passed to other classes. The code is simply "return bImage;"
Now in one of my OTHER classes, it needs this BufferedImage to be passed into its constructor. This is done immediately at the beginning of the program. This is where my problem lied.
The BufferedImage would not load quick enough to pass it into the constructor of my other class, so it kept passing a null BufferedImage rather than the actual image.
Through trial and error, I fixed this problem with the following code:
BufferedImage bImage = ImagePanel.getBufferedImage();
          while (bImage == null)
               try
                    Thread.sleep(10); // Pause for a short moment to give bImage time to load
               catch (Exception e)
                    JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Error: " + e.getMessage(), "Error!", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
               bImage = mapPanel.getBufferedImage(); // Try again
          }So if I slap a main function into the same class containing the code above, and create an instance of the class, and run it, it works fine, after a few seconds of loading (very inefficient program but that does not concern me for this project)
Now the main problem, and the reason I created this thread, is that when I create an instance of this class in ANOTHER class, it gets caught in an infinite loop at the above code.
However once again, if I simply make an instance of it in THE SAME CLASS, it works fine. What gives?

Answer 1

Alright, now I'm really confused. What would I need to change in the following class to change over to ImageIO?
I appreciate the help, I'm really frusterated at the moment.
public class ImagePanel extends JPanel
     private BufferedImage bImageEditable, bImageConstant;
     private Image image;
     private int id = 0;
     private boolean panelSized = false;
     public ImagePanel(String file)
          loadMap(file);
     public void loadMap(String file)
          Toolkit tk = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
          image = tk.getImage(file);
          MediaTracker tracker = new MediaTracker(this);
          tracker.addImage(image,id);
          try      
               tracker.waitForID(id);
          catch (InterruptedException ie)
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Error: " + ie.getMessage(), "Error!", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
     public void scaleImage(int w, int h)
          image = image.getScaledInstance(w,h,Image.SCALE_DEFAULT);
          MediaTracker tracker = new MediaTracker(this);
          tracker.addImage(image, id);
          try
               tracker.waitForID(id);
          catch (InterruptedException ie)
               JOptionPane.showMessageDialog(null, "Error: " + ie.getMessage(), "Error!", JOptionPane.ERROR_MESSAGE);
     public void loadBImage()
          // Load editable image
          bImageEditable = new BufferedImage(image.getWidth(null), image.getHeight(null), BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
          Graphics bImageEditableG = bImageEditable.getGraphics();
          bImageEditableG.drawImage(image, 0,0,null, null);
          // Load constant image
          bImageConstant = new BufferedImage(image.getWidth(null), image.getHeight(null), BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
          Graphics bImageConstantG = bImageConstant.getGraphics();
          bImageConstantG.drawImage(image, 0,0,null, null);
     public BufferedImage getBufferedImage()
          return bImageConstant;
     public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
          super.paintComponent(g);
          if (!panelSized)
               scaleImage(getWidth(), getHeight());
               loadBImage();
               panelSized = true;
          g.drawImage(bImageEditable, 0, 0, image.getWidth(null), image.getHeight(null), null);
          g.drawString(territoryName, 10, getHeight() - 10);
}