We’ve noticed that adding electronic paper displays to projects is getting easier. [NerdCave] picked up a 4.2-inch E-ink panel but found its documentation a bit lacking when it came to using the display under MicroPython. Eventually he worked it out, and was kind enough to share with the rest of the class.
These paper-like displays draw little power and can hold static images. There were examples from the vendor of how to draw some simple objects and text, but [NerdCave] wanted to do graphics. There was C code to do it, but it wasn’t clear how to port it to Python.
The key was to use the image2cpp website (we’ve used it before, but you can also use GIMP). Instead of C code, though, you get the raw bytes out and place them in your Python code. Once you know the workflow, it isn’t that hard, and this is an inexpensive way to add a different kind of display to your projects. The same image conversion will help you work with other displays, too.
We aren’t sure what driver chip this particular display uses, but if you have one with the UC8151/IL0373, you can find some amazing MicroPython drivers for those chips.
Awesome! I’m actually working on a project now using the Waveshare Pico-ePaper-2.9 Using C instead of python. They really are cool, though finicky, devices.
I bought an epaper display 5 years ago and used it for something with a WiFi SoC. To this date, it still says “Got IP 192.168.1.4” as it lays in my drawer
I really gotta find a good project for it. Its too cool to leave it in the drawer
Current time/temperature/wx forecast display.
IIRC, Hackaday featured such in the past.
Gopher it!
I am surprised how complicate he is doing the grafik. I just load any picture I like in my favorite graphic software (xv) dither it to black and wite and store it in xbm fileformat because this format is C code.
Olaf
Good tip! So I tried it immediately. What’s your favorite graphic software? Mine is Paint and Paint.net but both of them do not export to the XBM format :(
Hi. Try IrfanView or XNView ? 🤷♂️
I d/l’d IrfanView a couple decades ago on my Windows PC,
it was pretty neat.
I’d forgotten about it.
GIMP
xv!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xv_(software)
It served me well a long time. I am stil at 3.10a :)
Okay, since no other commenter has wrote it…
Pico Pikachu!
Picochu!
Gesundheit!
B^)
If you have a bunch of images, you can use python’s PIL (pillow) to convert images to binary using “image. convert” and save as bmp.
bmp is a quite easy format to read (see wiki description of format).
Dithering can also be used in image.convert to create some pseudo – grayscale as well.
However, because bmp has no compression, you won’t be able to save many images without a SD card module as well.