I am writing a genetic algorithm that approximates an image with a polygon. While going through the different generations, I'd like to output the progress to a JFrame. However, it seems like the JFrame waits until the GA's while loop finishes to display something. I don't believe it's a problem like repainting, since it eventually does display everything once the while loop exits. I want to GUI to update dynamically even when the while loop is running.

Here is my code:

while (some conditions) {
    //do some other stuff
    gui.displayPolygon(best);
    gui.displayFitness(fitness);
    gui.setVisible(true);
}

public void displayPolygon(Polygon poly) {
    BufferedImage bpoly = ImageProcessor.createImageFromPoly(poly);
    ImageProcessor.displayImage(bpoly, polyPanel);
    this.setVisible(true);
}

public static void displayImage(BufferedImage bimg, JPanel panel) {
    panel.removeAll();
    panel.setBounds(0, 0, bimg.getWidth(), bimg.getHeight());
    JImagePanel innerPanel = new JImagePanel(bimg, 25, 25);
    panel.add(innerPanel);
    innerPanel.setLocation(25, 25);
    innerPanel.setVisible(true);
    panel.setVisible(true);
}