Getting jpegs accross rmi

Question

Hi
I need to figure out how to send jpeg images over an rmi connection, and i'm stuck.
I read my image file in at one end using
BufferedImage image = ImageIO.read(new File(file));
then I tried sending this, which it didn't like.
Then I tried serialising this using .getToolkit().sync() but you can't use that on Images...
I then got a pixel array (int []) of the image, and transfered this using rmi (which it liked), but when i turn it back into an image then write it to file, i get an unopenable file... My slightly scruffy code is as follows:
//rmi method called to get the pixel array
public int[] getTheImage(String file) throws RemoteException{
BufferedImage image = null;
try{
image = ImageIO.read(new File(file));
image.getToolkit();
catch (Exception e){
int w = image.getWidth();
int h = image.getHeight();
//turn into an int []
handlepixels(image, w, h);
return pixels;
int [] pixels;
//sets the contents of pixels
public void handlepixels(BufferedImage img, int w, int h) {
int width = w;
pixels = new int[w * h];
PixelGrabber pg = new PixelGrabber(img, 0, 0, w, h, pixels, 0, w);
try {
pg.grabPixels();
} catch (InterruptedException e) {
System.err.println("interrupted waiting for pixels!");
return;
if ((pg.getStatus() & ImageObserver.ABORT) != 0) {
System.err.println("image fetch aborted or errored");
return;
the other end of the code, where pixels is the int[] of pixels, w is the width, h is the height:
MemoryImageSource mis = new MemoryImageSource(w,h,pixels, 0, w);
Toolkit tk = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit();
Image img = tk.createImage(new MemoryImageSource(w, h, pix, 0, w));
BufferedImage bim = new BufferedImage(w, h, BufferedImage.TYPE_INT_RGB);
bim.getGraphics().drawImage(img, 0, 0, null);
//save the file to local space
try{
System.out.println("writing jpeg");
ImageIO.write (bim, "jpg", new File(file));
Thanks
Emma

Answer 1

Hello,
To my knowledge I have read that images / pictures should be transferred as byte array stream which are serializable. You could try that and see if that works.
Sathish