Tag Archives: tft

Virtual Keyboard for the Raspberry Pi

Matchbox-keyboard is an on screen ‘virtual’ or ‘software’ keyboard which works well for small touchscreen TFTs connected to a Raspberry Pi.


Matchbox-keyboard also uses XML files to specify the layout of the keys, which makes it highly customizable.

The touchscreen used in the above video is a PiScreen.
Continue reading Virtual Keyboard for the Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi with stroke and Gesture Recognition

If you are using a touchscreen with your Raspberry Pi, then this guide is for you.

Xstroke (Gesture recognition) is the perfect tool to help you get more out of your touhscreen. I am using a PiScreen

Gesture recognition allows you to draw “strokes” on your touchscreen, which get interpreted as commands or text. Xstroke allows these to be entered anywhere on the screen. In some cases, Xstroke can be used instead of a keyboard.


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PiScreen – 3.5″ TFT(480×320) with touch control for the Raspberry Pi – Kickstarter launched

We have launched a Kickstarter campaign for a 3.5″ TFT (480×320) with touch control, we have given it the name of PiScreen.

PiScreen includes a 3.5″ TFT with touchscreen control, PCB and components needed to add this display to a Raspberry Pi.

PiScreen connects right on top of the Raspberry Pi GPIO pins

 UPDATE
PiScreen can now be purchased directory from ozzmaker.com

PiScreen is compatible with all models of Raspberry Pi, including Pi 2.

 

The TFT used is the best quality we have seen so far.

TFTTFTTFT
PiScreenKitPiScreenKit

Some specifics;
Touch Screen Resistive
Display construction 480 * 320 DOTS
LCD Controller ILI9481
Touch Screen ControllerXPT2046
Display Color Multicolor, 65536 colors

Head on over and check it out.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2135028730/piscreen-a-35-tft-with-touchscreen-for-the-raspber

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Programming for a Touchscreen on the Raspberry Pi

To accept input from a touchscreen we have to use the event interface of the Linux input system. We use the ioctl capabilities of the event interface, in addition to the normal read and write calls to get information from the touchscreen. This blog post explains how to use the touchscreen within your own programs using C as well as writing directly to the framebuffer.

Images of my TFT from a previous post;

TFTTFTTFT

Continue reading Programming for a Touchscreen on the Raspberry Pi

Raspberry Pi with a 1.8″ TFT shield

I’m using a shield from Texy to attach my TFT to my Pi.

TFT ShieldTFT shield

This is soooo much easier then connecting up the cables individually, which requires me to always refer to the wiring diagram… and it always takes me two or three goes to get it right.

This just requires a quick snap onto the top of the GPIO pins. It also includes wiring to use 3 buttons on the GPIO pins not being used by the TFT.

Look here to find out where you can get one;
http://www.raspberrypi.org/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=40674







Continue reading Raspberry Pi with a 1.8″ TFT shield

Raspberry Pi with a 2.2″ TFT

 

Notro has done some great work with developing drivers for different models of TFT displays for the Pi.
He successfully created one for the Adafruit 2.2″ TFT . This is a great little display and is very clear.

Notro’s Wiki with instructions can be found here.

As with the 1.8″ TFT from Adafruit, this device can be used to display video, images and your own data with easily using pygame.

A couple of images from my Pi running the 2.2 TFT;

photo2.2TFT

PiTFT22-1

 

 
Continue reading Raspberry Pi with a 2.2″ TFT

Raspberry Pi and TFT Display

The 1.8″ TFT from Adafruit is the perfect display to attached to a Raspberry Pi.

These instructions also help with the Sainsmart display and you can find more info for both here: http://www.whence.com/rpi/

 

 

The TFT isn’t ‘plug & play’ with the Raspberry, a patch has to be applied to the kernel to be able to interface via SPI with the ST7735R controller chip on the TFT. Once working, the display will act as a framebuffer device.

I spent two weeks trying to get it working, so I thought I would document it to help others.

PiScreen TFT Raspberry Pi


###UPDATE 14th Nov 2013###
After a large number of request, I have now posted the compiled version of the kernel that supports the 1.8” TFT. Based on 2013-09-25-wheezy-raspbian.img. There are two links below, one for the Kernel the other is the instructions.

https://ozzmaker.com/downloads/1.8TFT_Kernel_3.6.11.tar

 

https://ozzmaker.com/download/README1.8TFT_Kernel_3.6.11.tar.txt

 

Mirror

 

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Thanks go to Kamal (http://www.whence.com/rpi/) and Neil for responding to my emails & forum post, and their work on the ST7735R driver.
Thanks also go to Adafruit for their cool products.

 

As it takes over three hours to compile the kernel on the PI, I will show how to cross compile from another Linux PC. In my case, it is Ubuntu 12.10 running within VMWare on a Windows 7 Quad core PC. Kernel compile time is 15 mins.

 

Wire it up




Sainsmart wiring details are here on Kamal’s page: http://www.whence.com/rpi/


You could also use a shield to make the wiring a lot easier, look here

Prepare the Raspberry Pi

-Download and install Raspbian “wheezy”.
This guide is based on 2013-02-09-wheezy-raspbian which is running 3.6.11 kernel

Continue reading Raspberry Pi and TFT Display