LCDGFX library for display controllers

• Introduction
• Documentation
• Easy to use
• Key Features
• Setting up
• Supported displays
• Supported platforms
• Useful tools
• Projects using lcdgfx
• The goals of lcdgfx library
• License

Introduction

lcdgfx driver is C++ library with unicode support. The library can be compiled for plain Linux (for example, raspberry spi), or you can use it with plain avr-gcc compiler without Arduino IDE. It supports monochrome and RGB oleds and has debug mode, allowing to execute code on Linux, Windows and macOS, using SDL2.0. The library is intended to run on small microcontrollers. It is developed to use as few resources as possible, but still has powerful capabilities (NanoEngine), allowing to develop nice animation. It works also on any powerful devices like raspberry pi, esp32; and can be easily ported to new platform. This library integrates another library canvas

Documentation

For more information about this library, please, visit https://github.com/lexus2k/lcdgfx. Documentation generated by doxygen tool can be found at codedocs xyz site. The library provides numerous usage examples.

Easy to use

Example:

DisplayST7735_128x160x16_SPI display(3,{-1, 4, 5, 0,-1,-1});

void setup()
{
    display.begin();
    display.clear();
}

void loop()
{
    display.setColor(RGB_COLOR16(255,255,0));
    display.drawLine(10,30,56,96);
}

Key Features

• Supports color, monochrome OLED displays
• The library has modular structure, and some modules can be excluded from compilation at all to reduce flash usage.
• Very small footprint ( Draw text example uses only 5KiB of Flash with I2C code, display code, font!!! and application itself. Examples without fonts start at 2.5KiB of Flash )
• Very small RAM consumption ( Attiny85 with Damellis package needs minimum 30 bytes of RAM to communicate with OLED )
• Fast implementation to provide reasonable speed on slow microcontrollers
• Supports i2c and spi interfaces, allows to implement custom interfaces:
  • i2c (software implementation, Wire library, AVR Twi, Linux i2c-dev)
  • spi (4-wire spi via Arduino SPI library, AVR Spi, AVR USI module)
• Primitive graphics functions (lines, rectangles, pixels, bitmaps, drawing canvas)
• Printing text to display (using fonts of different size, How to add new fonts, Useful tools)
• Includes graphics engine to support double buffering on tiny microcontrollers.
• Can be used for game development (bonus examples):
  • Arkanoid game (arkanoid in old style API and arkanoid8 in new style API)
  • Simple Lode runner game.
  • Snowflakes

The i2c pins can be changed via API functions. Please, refer to documentation. Keep in mind, that the pins, which are allowed for i2c or spi interface, depend on the hardware. The default spi SCLK and MOSI pins are defined by SPI library, and DC, RST, CES pins are configurable through API.

Setting up

i2c Hardware setup is described here

Setting up for Arduino from github sources)

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/lcdgfx
• Put the sources to Arduino/libraries/lcdgfx folder

Setting up for Arduino from Arduino IDE library manager

• Install lcdgfx library (named lcdgfx by Alexey Dynda) via Arduino IDE library manager

Using with plain avr-gcc:

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/lcdgfx
• Build the library (variant 1)
  • cd lcdgfx/src && make -f Makefile.avr MCU=<your_mcu>
  • Link library to your project (refer to Makefile.avr in examples folder).
• Build demo code (variant 2)
  • cd lcdgfx/tools && ./build_and_run.sh -p avr -m <your_mcu> ssd1306_demo

For esp32:

• Download source from https://github.com/lexus2k/lcdgfx
• Put downloaded sources to components/lcdgfx/ folder.
• Compile your project as described in ESP-IDF build system documentation

For more information about this library, please, visit https://github.com/lexus2k/lcdgfx. Doxygen documentation can be found at Codedocs xyz site. If you found any problem or have any idea, please, report to Issues section.

Supported displays:

Display	I2C	SPI	Orientation	Comments
sh1106 128x64	X	X
sh1107 128x64	X	X
sh1107 64x128	X	X
ssd1306 64x32, 64x48, 128x64, 128x32	X	X
ssd1325 128x64	X	X
ssd1327 128x128	X	X
ssd1331 96x64		X	X
ssd1351 128x128, 96x96		X	X
il9163 128x128		X	X	please, don't forget to connect backlight
st7735 128x160, 80x160, 128x128		X	X	please, don't forget to connect backlight
st7789 135x240		X	X	please, don't forget to connect backlight
ili9341 240x320		X	X	please, don't forget to connect backlight
pcd8544 84x48		X		Nokia 5110
any other custom				Refer to custom display example

Supported platforms

Compilers: gcc, clang

Platforms	I2C	SPI	Comments
Arduino
Wio Terminal	X	X	by SeeedStudio
Attiny85, Attiny45	X	X	Refer to Damellis attiny package
Attiny84, Attiny44	X	X	Refer to Damellis attiny package
Atmega328p, Atmega168	X	X
Atmega32u4	X	X
Atmega2560	X	X
Digispark, including PRO version	X	X	check examples compatibility list
ESP8266	X	X	check examples compatibility list
ESP32	X	X	check examples compatibility list
STM32	X	X	stm32duino
Arduino Zero	X	X
Nordic nRF5 (nRF51, nRF52)	X	X	via Standard Arduino nRF52 boards. nRF users, enable c++11 in platform.txt -std=gnu++11
Nordic nRF5 (nRF51, nRF52)	X	X	via Sandeep Mistry arduino-nRF5 package
Wio Terminal	X	X	Wio Terminal
TTGO T-Display		X	LilyGo TTGO
Plain AVR
Attiny85, Attiny45	X	X
Atmega328p, Atmega168	X	X
Atmega32u4	X	X
Plain ESP32 IDF
ESP32	X	X	library can be used as IDF component
TTGO T-Display		X
Plain ESP8266
ESP8266	X	X	library can be used as IDF RTOS component
Linux
Raspberry Pi	X	X	i2c-dev, spidev, sys/class/gpio
SDL Emulation	X	X	demo code can be run without real OLED HW via SDL library
macOS
SDL Emulation	X	X	demo code can be run without real OLED HW via SDL library
Windows
SDL Emulation	X	X	demo code can be run without real OLED HW via MinGW32 + SDL library

Digispark users, please check compilation options in your Arduino prior to using this library. lcdgfx library requires at least c++11 and c99 (by default Digispark package misses the options -std=gnu11, -std=gnu++11).

Useful tools

Tim's Image Pixel Editor This is a little application made by Tim Jackson to edit and create Images and fonts for the small monochrome displays.

Built-in font generator Lcdgfx library has built-in Python script to generate lcd fonts from ttf files.

Font format converter from bdf fonts by mayopan Font format converter that converts bdf font to lcdgfx c style free

Projects using lcdgfx

• GUIslice - nice platform independent GUI library for embedded systems
• Tension Meter
• ESP32-CAM with Capacitive Touch Buttons and OLED
• nice TinyTrackGPS by Rafael Reyes

The goals of lcdgfx library

• To use as few RAM as possible
• To use as few Flash as possible
• To be as fast as possible
• To fit Arkanoid game example to Attiny85 microcontroller

License

The library is free. If this project helps you, you can give me a cup of coffee.

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2016-2022, Alexey Dynda

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.