Awesome
Using large displays with MicroPython devices
There is an existing solution for displays based on the SSD1963 controller and XPT2046 touch controller. This detailed here, uses a parallel interface. This interface combined with the highly optimised device driver written by Robert Hammelrath, delivers very high performance at the cost of requiring a large number of interface pins. It is STM (e.g. Pyboard) specific.
This repository offers an alternative for displays based on the RA8875
controller. The driver configures this to use SPI to reduce the pin count to
five. The driver and GUI should be portable to any MicroPython target which
supports the @micropython.viper decorator.
There is a performance cost in using SPI, notably in the rendering of text. In the context of the GUI and typical machine control and sensor display applications, visual performance in handling updates is good. When drawing a complete screen there is a visible lag notably on text-heavy screens.
The GUI is targeted at hardware control and sensor display applications. GUI objects are drawn using graphics primitives rather than by rendering bitmap images. This takes advantage of the RA8875 hardware rendering of graphics primitives and ensures that controls are scalable. The API is via event driven callbacks.
The GUI uses uasyncio for scheduling and has been tested on Pyboard V1.1 and
on Pyboard D. It has been updated for uasyncio V3 which is built-in to daily
builds and will be included in release builds from V1.13. No knowledge of
uasyncio is required to develop applications for the GUI.
Supported hardware from Adafruit:
Controller board
4.3 inch 480x272 TFT display
5 inch 800x480 TFT
7 inch 800x480 TFT
Non-Adafruit display hardware may or may not work: the detailed hardware specifications for displays may vary, requiring corresponding changes to the device driver code. I am unlikely to be able to support this.
Most users will require only the following:
GUI document.
Device driver documentation is here. A sample image of the 4.3 inch display:
