Showing a Gif on an LCD little display

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Hi,
I need to show a Gif on a Display like this.

I realized that Arduino Pro mini/nano are not capable to do that (am I right?). So I'm looking for a small board, easy to use, in order to show my Gif.

Raspberry Pi Zero is almost a ghost today and I don't have one, Orange PI one is too big becouse of the connectors.

I found Teensy 3.2, but it seems to be a little bit expensive for the project I'm making.

Do you have any better idea, available on Ebay.com perhaps?

Thank you very much!
 

Picbuster

Joined Dec 2, 2013
1,047
How many do you want to produce?
What is the price level you will accept?
If you need only a few. The components costs will be 60$ approx. plus your time
when going for production; labour, Safety, EMC testing/report/manual and housing should be added.
(Safety:IP grade, electrical, toxic gasses when overheated, enclosure sharpness, child safety etc.)
If you need 20K units the price per unit will be a fraction of the 60$.

Please identify your needs and produce a description of what you exactly want.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Thanks for your interest!

I don't need to produce something else than a little box with a display and a GIF inside. One unit. So It's an hobby and fun proupose.

I did each of my "complex" project with Arduino in the past and I'm looking for something similar.

Now I'm approacing at Teensy 3.2 for this project. That seems able to do it in an arduino-like way. It costs 20 box versus an Arduino clone that costs 2$, but if is the only way I can manage, I will buy one.

Thanks again.
 

John P

Joined Oct 14, 2008
2,025
I don't see why an Arduino wouldn't do the job, since all you have to do is control an SPI interface. The issue would be where the GIF actually comes from, and if you want full resolution you'd need external storage. But it's easy enough to get a micro SD card reader that interfaces to an Arduino. You'd need software to read the SD card, make sense of the GIF file, and send it via SPI, and those all seem manageable.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
I don't see why an Arduino wouldn't do the job, since all you have to do is control an SPI interface. The issue would be where the GIF actually comes from, and if you want full resolution you'd need external storage. But it's easy enough to get a micro SD card reader that interfaces to an Arduino. You'd need software to read the SD card, make sense of the GIF file, and send it via SPI, and those all seem manageable.
I've used an Arduino to display bitmap in the past, the problem with Gif animation(in my opinion) is the speed. I've done something like this in the past:

As you can see, Arduino updates display output line by line. It's not enough to see an animation produced by 3-4 Bitmap.

Thanks for help, I'll wait your reply.
 

shteii01

Joined Feb 19, 2010
4,644
It is the project I found first. The project that introduce me the Teensy 3.2

So Teensy 3.2 is te minimum board to obtain this effect?
I don't know. I only done text with a uC.

I note that they used smaller tft displays. Depending on the code and libraries they used, I have not looked at the code, you may have to do some hacks on the libraries to make the code work on larger tft like the one you linked.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
If I'll have to choice Teensy, I will use the https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit-ST7735-Library and simply show 2-3 bitmap one after other on the display. This is going to produce an animation, helped by the refresh speed of display with Teensy.

The ST7735 library, will manage the 1.8" SPI display.

(I'm a beginner, this is only my opinion)
 
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John P

Joined Oct 14, 2008
2,025
Hey, when you started, it was "Showing a Gif". Now you're talking about animation, and speed of processing becomes much more of an issue. I'd guess that Arduino wouldn't be right for this.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Hey, when you started, it was "Showing a Gif". Now you're talking about animation, and speed of processing becomes much more of an issue. I'd guess that Arduino wouldn't be right for this.
Arduino Teensey is a knock-off yet higher than expected performance version of Arduino. It runs up to 70 MHz. Very nice.

The SPI interface on these display is 1MHz I believe.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Hey, when you started, it was "Showing a Gif". Now you're talking about animation, and speed of processing becomes much more of an issue. I'd guess that Arduino wouldn't be right for this.
Isn't a Gif an animation? I'm sorry for the mistake. I only need to show 2-3 image one after other to make a very simple animation, like a cartoon. I haven't ever seen an Arduino do something like that, do you have an example I can follow?

Thanks again for your help.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Arduino Teensey is a knock-off yet higher than expected performance version of Arduino. It runs up to 70 MHz. Very nice.

The SPI interface on these display is 1MHz I believe.
Yes, I'm taking information about and seems to be the right choice. Thanks.
 

GopherT

Joined Nov 23, 2012
8,009
Yes, I'm taking information about and seems to be the right choice. Thanks.
A gif is an image just like a jpg but gif also has an animation possibility where several stills are combined in a single file to make an animation/video. I'm sure I will be corrected but the original gifs were single images. It doesn't automatically imply a video or animation.
 

Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Sorry again. Always used Gif to indicate an animation couse today is the primary use. Thanks.
 
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Thread Starter

JohnCase

Joined Aug 19, 2015
28
Cool!
Did you need to do any changes to the libraries to define screen size?
No, it was not necessary cause I used the Adafruit library for ST7735 display controller and it manages many sizes of display as I know.

Indeed, some editing was necessary on the SDFat library in order to read from the SD card.
 
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