In JDK 5, we fixed 4916948, which means that for non-integral image translations
(for BILINEAR and BICUBIC hints only), our Java 2D implementation will send the
image through slower transform loops. This is important for correctness and
visual quality (as requested by many developers), but there are other developers
who may be less concerned with this exact behavior and would instead prefer the
old behavior, mainly because performance would be improved.
It is possible for developers to work around this issue in their code by checking
to see if there is only an integral translation set, and if so use the default
NEAREST_NEIGHBOR mode, which does not require going through the slow path. Of
course, such workarounds are inconvenient and ideally unnecessary. Therefore, we
should consider making this behavior selectable via the RENDER_QUALITY/SPEED RenderingHints, or some similar solution.