Thanks
@TILogistic - It works, kind of....
In my reference quoted above for the conversation on Stack Overflow there is much discussion around the subject. In effect, if both locations are simultaneously visible on the map (by virtue of the Zoom value) then we can presume that those map tiles are already cached. Repositioning the Camera in that case, using the native code produces a acceptable animated look.....
as long as you don't change the zoom value as that would necessitate loading another set of tiles. If both locations are far apart and not simultaneously in view then both the CameraPosition method and
@TILogistic's code produce a poor result as the tiles cannot be loaded quickly enough. Despite a very capable Graphics card and a 500mb/s internet connection the JVM simply cannot display the tiles fast enough to produce an animated look.
Having said that.... I realise I may be asking too much of the JVM. My PC is a very high-spec workstation driving a native 4k monitor and I am displaying at full screen. So I tried the same test on my very average laptop with a simple HD monitor. Playing around with the Duration and Sleep(value) produced better results but not anything that represents an acceptable user experience. We seem to have hit the limitations of the JVM.