AURINKO

LED-Matrix interface protocol

Note that currently we are not continuing the development of Aurino any further since it has proven not to be very practical for most setups due to the following reasons:

  • It's too bloated to be used in very-very-low resolution displays (just sending raw pixeldata is much faster)
  • Larger displays have faster links anyway (USB, Ethernet....)
  • Writing Aurinko-specific Software is an additional overhead and less portable instead of just using standard drawing functions
  • We haven't developed an Aurinko output for ledbridge yet since raw pixeldata over Aurinko is very inefficient and utilizing the compression options would be very CPU-intensive

We will keep using it in the internal communication between Toublo and Ledbridge for now but that's it.

 

Aurinko is an open source interface to some of our LED-Matrices. The interface protocol is basically a simple serial data-stream containing the pixel data. It's optimized for very low datarate streams. Data can be generated by:

  • The animation editor Toublo, in live mode - when drawing on the LED-Matrix in realtime.
  • Animation- (video-) files generated with Toublo. Those files have the extension .cpaf and contain AurinkoLink data.
  • Realtime video - For example visuals, video games or interactive installations. The java-classes of the Aurinko package can be used generate the data using high-level calls such as setPixel(), hline(), draw(), etc.

The generated data stream can be sent to the destination using any transport mechanism you can think of. LAN, Wi-Fi, bluetooth and serial data cables are just some of the options we've evaluated successfully! When the AurinkoLink data has reached it's destination the following things can be done with it:

  • Direct display on an AurinkoLink compatible display:
    Some our self-made LED-Installations use the AurinkoLink protocol directly over a serial port. The datastream is sent to the microcontrollers which interpret the data and let the LED magic happen!
  • Conversion to other dataformats using ledbridge:
    Our tool ledbridge can be used to directly drive T9 controlled LED-Displays from an AurinkoLink stream.

The best way to understand the AurinkoLink Protocol is by reading the JavaDoc of the classes MatrixController and Surface as well as opcode.h. Aurinko highlevel libraries come bundled with Toublo which is available though our subversion repository.




Materialien und Technologien: c++, Java | 28 October, 2011 - 22:21 | nora | Comments 0 |