Software Development

[TerryJC]

Penri,

Now that I have a reliable set of hardware (albeit with only three screens supported and not four): see viewtopic.php?p=4458#p4458, I am working on the software.

The current approach is to have a number of directories, each containing a number of images for display. Currently I have:

• Kids_Dir
• Drama_Dir
• Documentaries_Dir
• Others_Dir

(I'm not sure about the last one and currently have nothing in it.)

My current software is in two parts at the moment. The first is the code that I created by modifying the example code provided by Waveshare and simply writes an Andy Pandy image to each screen in turn. The second part parses all the files in each of the above directories and writes them to Python arrays, so that I can select any particular image to write the screen or cycle through them all in turn.

Here is a printout of the files that I currently have ready to display:

Code: Select all

Annete-Mills-Muffin-The-Mule.bmp
Flower_Pot_Men.bmp
TheWoodentops.bmp
Andy_Pandy.bmp
Watch_with_mother.bmp
Rag_Tag&Bobtail.bmp


Robin_Hood.bmp
Dixon_of_Dock_green.bmp


Cookery.bmp

Before I go much further, I'd like us to agree what we want to happen. I originally envisaged the above scenario where each screen would cycle through a number of images in turn before starting again at the beginning. However, then we have some options:

1. Do we want to dedicate any particular screen to one of the above categories?
2. Do we want all screens to cycle through all images in sequence?
3. Do we want all screens to cycle through all images randomly?
4. Some combination of the above?
5. Something completely different?

In the meantime, I'll prepare the code on the basis of of Options 1 and 2, but modifying it to something else would not be difficult.

[Penri]

Will get back to you tomorrow.

[Penri]

Hum!

After mature consideration this is what I've come with right now:

The two hotel TV lounges will have a 1 TV in each with "grown-up' TV showing.

The shops, Holmans, Dacombe and Curry's a combination of children's and adults viewing, randomly would be good.

Nothing done about this yet but I, with help, may explore getting sponsorship from Holman's and Dacombe and want to put some sort of 'advertising' on the screens. As an idea with a 3 screen set-up in a line could we have a scrolling GET YOUR TVs FROM HOLMANS, one letter per screen?

[TerryJC]

The two hotel TV lounges will have a 1 TV in each with "grown-up' TV showing.

So those Pis would only be driving one screen each?

The shops, Holmans, Dacombe and Curry's a combination of children's and adults viewing, randomly would be good.

Randomly across all three screens or one screen with random Kids, one with random Documentaries and one with random Drama?

Nothing done about this yet but I, with help, may explore getting sponsorship from Holman's and Dacombe and want to put some sort of 'advertising' on the screens. As an idea with a 3 screen set-up in a line could we have a scrolling GET YOUR TVs FROM HOLMANS, one letter per screen?

I'm sure it's possible (we know how to do text), but I'm not sure how it would look. It would have to be delivered as:

Code: Select all

               P   Screen 1    P    Screen 2    P    Screen 3
1st Write ->           G                E                T
2nd Write ->           Y                O                U
3rd Write ->           R                T                V
4th Write ->           s                F                R
5th Write ->           O                M                H
6th Write ->           O                L                M
7th Write ->           A                N                S

Where P represents the time taken to write the character to the screen.

Would you envisage the advert alternating with the images or continuous scrolling?

Also. Based on the above we would need five Pi Zero Ws and 11 Screens. Right? I originally costed for 20 Screens.

[TerryJC]

I have now completed the development of a draft program to display images from one of four categories on up to three Screens. Depending on how the Requirement develops, I should be able to modify this easily to provide any of the other combinations mentioned above.

I had some problems with the quality of the displayed images, but this has been resolved now (see viewtopic.php?p=3976#p3976).

I have done nothing about the scrolling text idea yet. That should also be relatively straightforward to add, but I wait to see if either of the TV Shops wish to come on board.

[Penri]

Just seen these posts, will respond when able.
All very positive news.

[TerryJC]

Now that I have been able to get the Interface Board to drive up to four Screens (see viewtopic.php?p=4795#p4795), I have pushed the latest code to GilLab at https://gitlab.com/wmtprojectsteam/wmt-tiny-tvs.