Sharing Groups of Shapes : SharedGroup Node

• Some shapes occur over and over in a scene

  • Marble columns in a colonnade

  • Basic user interface components

• Sharing enables you to create one master definition of a shape then link to it multiple times in the scene

• A SharedGroup extends Group

  • It contains shapes, like other groups

  • It is never added into the scene graph directly

  • It is referenced by one or more Link nodes

• Changes to a SharedGroup affect all references to it

• Can be compiled by calling its compile( ) method prior to referencing it from a Link node

• Link extends the Leaf class