Freescale Embedded Graphical User Interface for colour LCD displays - egui
Contents LCD Type/Interface Overview What is the Freescale egui egui Features egui Roadmap egui Support egui Screen Shot Examples
LCD type Overview Driving graphics LCD panels normally requires a dedicated microprocessor (MPU) with hardware to control the LCD panel. The LCD controller peripheral creates the required digital RGB signals to connect to LCD panels. Solutions such as the ColdFire MCF5227x and i.mx have been specifically designed for this purpose and are capable of driving displays from ¼ VGA resolution to SVGA and beyond. Recently however, a number of new LCD displays have been released to the market which have the LCD control logic and display RAM integrated onto the LCD glass. These tend to offer either a simple serial peripheral interface (SPI) or 8-bit parallel interface which can be driven by any microcontroller.
Smart vs Dumb LCD Panels and Bus Requirements Dumb LCD thin film transistor t (TFT) panels are very much like dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) No on board frame buffer or graphics engine Cell s need to be refreshed periodically Refreshing uses a lot of bus bandwidth Cheaper but require LCD controller Smart LCD TFT panels Like Static RAM LCD is refreshed from on-board RAM CPU bus bandwidth is only used when data must be changed Requires significantly less CPU bus bandwidth More expensive but do not require LCD controller
LCD Driving Methods Traditional LCD System Requires a dedicated LCD MPU SPI/Parallel Driven LCD Can be driven from any MCU Graphics Controller MPU RGB LCD bus MCU SPI Display DRAM Program Flash Address and data bus or MCU Chip on glass LCD with integrated display RAM 8-bit parallel
What s the egui? Complimentary, C t very lightweight i software component allowing graphics LCD panels to be driven from small microcontrollers Structure of driver brings complete software solution for applications needing a color LCD screen Touch screen capability Organization done by screen with high level objects Very light RAM and FLASH footprint Supported products HCS08 (version 0.9) ColdFire V1 MCUs (version 0.9) ColdFire V2 MCUs (version 0.9) HCS12 (version 1.0) ColdFire LCD MPUs (1.11) egui was formally known as D4D
Block Scheme of egui Implementation User application layer of user application code Application programmable interface interface layer between user application and egui egui high level layer that manage all screens and objects (redraws, input keys, touch screen events, etc.) LCD low level manages communication with LCD and provides some basic function (Draw line, bitmap, circle, etc.) Hardware Freescale MCU board + LCD (egui API)
Support graphical color LCD displays of various sizes Easily ported to any Freescale MCU or MPU Object style of driver Very smart support screen oriented structure of user code Objects: Button Check Box / User handled Radio Button Gauge Icon Label Menu Picture Slider Touch screen support Buffer for input keys Can be integrated with MQX operating system (from version 1.0) Features of egui
egui will Support Both Types of LCD Driving Methods From Version 1.1 Onwards Traditional LCD System Requires a dedicated LCD MPU SPI/Parallel driven LCD Can be driven from any MCU Graphics Controller MPU RGB LCD bus MCU SPI Display DRAM Program Flash Address and data bus or MCU Chip on glass LCD with integrated display RAM 8-bit parallel
egui Support Software egui Image Converter Utility PC utility used to: Convert bitmap images into C arrays which egui can display on LCD panels Convert fonts into C arrays that can be used by egui to display text on LCD panels
Existing Demos in the version 1.11 release
egui Roadmap Release 0.9 supports S08 ColdFire V1 MCU ColdFire V2 MCU Release 1.0 (June 2010) S12 support added MQX (3.6) compatibility added Release 1.1 (Q3 2010) ColdFire MCF5227x support added Release 1.2 (TBD) Support added for Processor Expert Support added for Linux?
Development Tool Support Release 1.11 TWR-LCD: Tower System Graphical LCD Module M52277EVB Required q IDE CodeWarrior Development Studio for desired platform
Supported LCD Module Supported Display Controllers and LCD Modules TRULY TFT2N0369-E Supported Display Controller SSD1289
How Can egui be Adapted to an Alternative LCD/Controller egui User Manual DRM116 explains how this can be implemented
How Can egui be Integrated with a USB and TCP/IP Stack MQX is a complimentary fully featured OS provided d by Freescale to solve the complex integration problems associated with the integration of communications stacks egui version 1.0 provides seamless integration into the MQX operating system
egui Documentation and Downloads egui User Manual DRM116 egui Image Converter Utility User Manual - EGUICUG egui Fact Sheet - EGUIFS egui Video - click here www.freescale.com/egui
egui Examples
egui Picture Object Object picture is used in example application on most screens to show background image. Parameters: Position Bitmap
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Picture Buttons Label
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Gauge Picture Check Box Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Picture Sliders Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Gauge Picture Slider Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Icon Picture Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Icon Label Picture Buttons Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Picture Menu Button
egui Example Application Screen Shot Label Labels Picture Buttons Button