Thread Scheduling

Java 3D requires a more robust thread scheduling system than the standard Java thread mechanism and therefore implements its own custom methods for thread execution. Under the Java 3D thread scheme, messages propagate through three separate mechanisms. One thread structure is spatially organized around geometric objects and is used for things such as picking, collision detection, and culling. The second thread mechanism is termed the render bin and represents the state of the scene graph associated with each view. This state impacts the rendering thread. Finally, object behaviors exist in yet another thread.

All three threads are run in an infinite loop. The thread scheduler runs all three threads once for each iteration of the loop and waits for all of them to terminate before entering the next iteration.