A PNG graphic with special markers to allow intelligent resizing. This means the images is split into 9 areas which behave differently by the layout manager when the images is resized in a way that eliminates the distortion which would occur when doing it the starndard way. The 4 corners are unchanged, the 4 sides are stretched in their appropriate single axis only, and the middle area is scaled in both dimensions. The four corners, four sides and middle area comprise the Nine-Patches - hence the term.