Overlays provide an application with the ability place a 2D set of rendered images over the top of the 3D scene. This has come about because of the dismal performance of the standard Java3D capability provided by the Canvas3D class. These overlays are oriented as part of the 3D and always consistent with any drawn parts to provide an invisible overlay capability to the application code.
The code in this package is provided by Dave Yazel of Teseract Software, LLP.