Pixelmeister

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Pixelmeister
User Interface modeling tool for microelectronic devices.

  1. Overview
  2. Installation and update
  3. Basic features
  4. Tools
  5. uText library
  6. Planned features
  7. Troubleshooting
  8. Downloads

 

1. Overview

Pixelmeister is a platform-independent tool intended to simplify graphical user interface development for microelectronic devices. Currently it emulates Pixels and UTFT (incl. uText) graphic libraries.

Pixelmeister helps you to make the most of UI modeling work without a need to upload/test program code on a target device after every UI adjustment step. With the tool it is also possible to convert images, icons and TTF/OTF fonts into a very compact format, can be used in a microcontroller program.

(click an image to enlarge)

 

 

2. Installation and update

Download Pixelmeister from here or from PD4ML software download area.

There are versions for Mac OS X (64bit) and Windows (32bit and 64bit) instantly available. Binaries for other platforms like Linux, Solaris (and others if supported by Java SWT) need to be combined manually.

The tool requires JDK 1.6 (or any newer) on the target platform. JRE is not sufficient, as Pixelmeister utilizes Java compiler API for dynamic code snippets compilation.

2.1 Mac OS X

Starting with Mac OS X "Lion" (10.7), the Java runtime is no longer installed automatically as part of the OS installation. If it is still not on your workstation, it can be obtained, for example, by the following link: http://support.apple.com/kb/DL1421 or lookup a newer version.

After the Java is installed double click on the downloaded DMG file and drag Pixelmeister icon to Applications.

Since OS X Mountain Lion, the Mac defaults to preventing applications from unidentified developers or sources from being launched.

 

Instead of double-clicking on the app in question to open it, here's what you do:
  • Ctrl+click or right click on the app and select Open from the contextual menu.
This time you'll see the popup below instead of a message saying the app can't be opened at all.

After the application is successfully started Pixelmeister will prompt you for a serial number. Apply for a trial one by the given link:

 

or purchase a license.

After you received an email with serial number and activated the application, go Help->Check For Updates to bring the tool to the most actual state.

Now the application is ready to be used.

2.2 MS Windows

Install JDK, if needed: http://www.oracle.com/technetwork/java/javase/downloads/jdk7-downloads-1880260.html

Download PixelmeisterInstaller.exe or PixelmeisterInstaller64.exe depending on your Windows type and run it. The installer application will lead you through quite usual installation procedure. In some cases the installer requires you to explicitly give administrative rights to write data to Program Files directory.

At some point the installer scans the registry for JDK 1.6+ location. If the info is missing there, it prompts to manually point to a Java home.

If you chosen a wrong directory by the step, you may correct the mistake later in Pixelmeister.ini file.

By the first launch Pixelmeister will prompt you for a serial number (see above). Apply for a trial one by the given link or purchase a license.

After you received an email with serial number and activated the application, go Help->Check For Updates to bring the tool to the most actual state.

Now the application is ready to be used.

2.3 Other platforms

3. Features

Pixelmeister inherits application and GUI framework from Eclipse/SWT and supports the major features, probably already familiar to you. You may open or close particular views, combine them to groups, position the groups in different regions of the main application window, minimize the groups. If any View is closed by mistake, it can be re-opened via Window->Show View menu command.

Text labels, painted in blue, are in fact edit fields. You may change their values by a setting focus and an editing. This way you may change target device width, height and the viewer grid step.

Code editor also implements a very basic content assist ("auto-complete" feature). If a particular code line starts with pxs., utft. or utext., by Ctrl-Space it offers Pixels, UTFT and uText class API methods correspondingly to insert.

 

Pixelmeister by any program code change, pre-compiles it in memory and highlights syntax errors if any:

A mouse pointer, moved over the error icon in the left bottom corner pops up a balloon with the compiler error message. A click over the icon dumps the error message to the console.

Take into account: even if Pixelmeister's programming language looks like C++ or Wiring, in fact it is Java. As long as Java inherits the main language syntax from C/C++ in most of cases you should not care about it: you just trigger class methods of UTFT or uText instances; if-else, do-while, switch-case etc syntax is more-less the same. But, for example, by an array declaration you would need to code two versions and to screen Wiring-specific one from Java compiler:

int[] kerning = { //:Java
//int8_t kerning[5] = { //:Wiring

-13,-15,-10,-3,-100 };

By a sketch export the above construct will be automatically turned into

//int[] kerning = { //:Java
int8_t
kerning[5] = { //:Wiring

-13,-15,-10,-3,-100 };

The code change decision will be made by an analyze of the trailing comments //:Java and //:Wiring

The recent versions of Pixelmeister support preprocessor directives #ifdef PIXELMEISTER, #else, #endif and #ifndef PIXELMEISTER to simplify bi-platform sketch code maintenance.

If you move mouse over device view area, in the info pane you may see the actual mouse coordinates. If you drag mouse, it paints a blue rectangle and show its coordinates and dimensions in X, Y, WIDTH x HEIGHT format. You may set focus to the text label and copy-paste the values. However UTFT API methods expect box coordinates in X1, Y1, X2, Y2 form. You get the box coordinates in such format in the clipboard if you click at Copy button.

 

A copy-paste of the box coordinates to utft.fillRect() parameters, results the following (as it was actually expected).

It is a usual practice by uC programming to enclose program sketch code  into "do { ... } while( 1 )" construct.

For Java the syntax is invalid. If we change it into correct  "do { ... } while( true )" we can compile the code, but  during runtime it will consume all available system resources: it is ok for a microcontroller, but for a workstation, which runs Pixelmeister, it is not desirable.

A solution is to leave  "do { ... } while( 1 )" as is. Pixelmeister will implicitly replace  "while( 1 )" construct.with a safe "while( slowWhile() )". By sketch export "slowWhile()" will be substituted with "1" back.

Sketch export functionality is obvious. You may either copy a sketch code (already preprocessed for maximal C++/Wiring compatibility) to the clipboard, or to save it to a hard drive.

We prefer to copy-paste it to Arduino IDE, and the program is ready to be (slightly adjusted if needed,) compiled  and uploaded to a target device.

 

4. Tools

4.1 Image import

Pixelmeister offers a powerful tool to import images and to convert them into rgb565 bitmaps, supported by UTFT library and target devices.

The tool allows you to preview, to scale images and to inspect expected output image data sizes - which is always a critical info for microcontrollers with limited resources.

The image data can be either saved in raw form to an external drive (to be preloaded from SD, for instance) or to imported to program sketch resources (as PROGMEM data):

A generated data array is followed with a usage example comment and data size reference (in bytes).

Here is an imported image, drawn with an API call from a sketch.

The image import dialog also includes "Output 0xFFDF instead of 0xFFFF" option, which is a workaround of an occasional program upload error.

4.2 True Type font import

One of the most important features of Pixelmeister is TTF font import, which finally allows to give your microelectronic device a professionally looking interface.

Pixelmeister converts TTF fonts to a compact raster format supported by a supplied uText library.

The format can handle font glyphs with constant width (i.e. Courier) as well as with variable widths (Arial, Times New Roman, etc).

It can import fonts in "grainy" monochrome mode, which would make sense for LCD devices with limited number of colors. Alternatively it can import fonts in antialiased mode for smooth glyph edge appearance on TFT devices. 

An animated image below shows the resulting font data grow, if you switch the antialiasing on/off.

Probably 8KB is quite a lot for your target device program space. On the other hand 28px font is quite big for a regular use and, let's say, it is required only for numeric data output. Let's reduce the font characters range:

Well, now it is about 2K, which is much better. Also, if you need to use the font only for a single string output, you may type the string and generate a font, which includes only used characters.

The animated image shows the resulting grainy and antialiased font sizes:

After the font is added to the resources, it can be referenced from uText library and used for a text output:

If you deal with big fonts and if you are perfectionist, in some cases you may find that some spaces between glyphs needs to be refined. uText offers a way to change the default spacing with kerning parameter of uText.print() method.

The picture shows a difference between a not kerned grainy text and antialiased text with kerning applied.

{-4, 0, -100} requests to apply -4px kerning after the first char, 0px kerining after the second char and further, -100 means end of kerning data.

5. uText Library

The current state of the library can be obtained by the link.

The library can be easily ported to any platform, which supports horizontal and vertical lines output.

uText API

Method Description Comments
uText(UTFT* utft, uint16_t width, uint16_t height); Constructor. Requires an reference to an instantiated UTFT library and target device width and height.  
int setFont(prog_uchar font[]); Sets current font. The font must be in format, output by Pixelmeister's Font Import tool.  
void setBackground(uint8_t r, uint8_t g, uint8_t b); Sets text background. Text background is irrelevant for "grainy" fonts output. For antialiased fonts the color is used to compute colors for glyph edge smoothing.
void setForeground(uint8_t r, uint8_t g, uint8_t b); Set text foreground.  
void print(int xx, int yy, String text, int8_t kerning[] = NULL); Prints a string by given coordinates. Optionally accepts text kerning data. Kerning data in an integer array ends with -100 value. Each value is to be applied after an characters located in string by the same index.

For example:
int kerning[6] = { -3, 2, 0, -1, -100 };
applied to "kerning" string.

The default gap between 'k' and 'e' is going to be reduced to 3px, the gap between 'e' and 'r' extended to 2px. Between 'r' and 'n' there is no kerning change. Between 'n' and 'i' it is going to be -1px. As the -1 value is the last in the sequence, it will be applied to all gaps after 'i'.

void clean(int xx, int yy, String text, int8_t kerning[] = NULL); An opposite to text print method. Fills glyph shapes with the background color. Optionally accepts text kerning data. Does not impact pixels not belonging to a glyph. For 'grainy' fonts the method is probably redundant. Its effect can be achieved by a a printing text over, painted to background color. But with antialiased fonts it cares to fill with opaque color also semi-transparent glyph edge pixels.
int16_t getLineHeight(); Returns current font line height.  
int16_t getBaseline(); Returns current font baseline position.  
int16_t getTextWidth(String text, int8_t kerning[] = NULL); Returns width in pixels of a particular text string, printed with current font and (optionally) with given kerning info.  

6. Planned features

Below is a growing list of features, we'd like to add to Pixelmeister if there is a demand.

  • User interface interactions: configurable buttons, rotary encoders etc
  • Interrupts generator: periodic, random.
  • Import of Google Web fonts.
  • Line wrap logic for uText library.
  • Import of SVG graphics into a sequence of UTFT/uText API calls
  • Preprocessor directives: #ifdef, #endif etc [done]

7. Troubleshooting

  • Genaral instability.
    Windows: Go to the application home directory, open Pixelmeister.ini in a text editor and change javaw in the second line to java. The change forces Java to start with a console open. Check the console output for error messages or exception stack traces.
    Mac OS: Open Terminal application. Run:
    cd /Applications/Pixelmeister.app/Contents/MacOS
    ./Pixelmeister -consoleLog
     
  • After a serial number entering, the application quits. The Java console (if opened) disappears too quickly to read what wrong there.
    Most probably the application has no permissions to write to the application home directory. Change the directory permissions or ownership using the standard OS means or set Pixelmeister to "run as administrator" (in the application security properties).
     
  • Sketch upload problem: avrdude: verification error, first mismatch at byte 0xXXXX

    The problem usually exposes itself by a program upload, when the program code includes relatively big arrays of data with long sequences of 0xFF bytes (which is quite a usual situation for programs embed images with white background). For some reason avrdude tool "optimizes" the data chunk write process and skips the data upload (probably expecting the bytes are in 0xFF state by default).

    After an upload it reports a verification error and during runtime white areas of uploaded images appear corrupted:

    A solution how to enforce avddude not to skip the data is not obvious. As a workaround we implemented "Output 0xFFDF instead of 0xFFFF" option in the image import dialog, which sacrifices the lower bit of green channel in order to exclude 0xFFFF from the image data.

8. Downloads

Feb. 19, 2013: uText library updated for a compatibility with Arduino Due and recent changes in UTFT library.

Apr. 17, 2013: The version adds a possibility to import system fonts (not only from a chosen TTF file) and to define an arbitrary font size.

Sep. 02, 2013: Optional Pixels TFT graphics library emulation. Supports preprocessor directives (#ifdef PIXELMEISTER, #ifndef PIXELMEISTER, #else, #endif) to maintain Java and C++ code within the same source file.

Feb. 04, 2014: New build reflects Pixels library structure refactoring.  Added a list of target TTF devices (ElecFreaks, Itead Studio).

Feb. 12, 2014: Minor update. In-place code editor bugfixing. Added basic UNDO/REDO support (Ctrl-Z/Ctrl-Y)

Sep. 02, 2014: Pixels and uText updated to support Teensy 3.1

Sep. 07, 2014: Arduino Robot LCD is supported by Pixels. Hardware configuration samples added.

Oct. 16, 2014: Bitmap drawing logic of Pixels refactored. Pixels and Pixelmeister support compressed bitmaps (new drawCompressedBitmap() API method). Pixels lib is ported for ILI9481 and SSD1289 controllers.

Dec. 20, 2014: New drawIcon() and cleanIcon() Pixels API methods. With a new "Import Icon" feature Pixelmeister supports an import of images and iconic font glyphs.

Jan. 08, 2015: New maintenance release solves minor visual UI flaws on OSX platform and refines "Import Icon" dialog logic.

Mar. 20, 2015: New release improves code editor, supports selected C++ syntax constructs (illustrated by Pixels/PolargraphUI demo), fixes a variety of minor bugs.

 

Platform Size
MacOS X 64 bit Java ~21 Mbb
Windows 32 bit Java ~21 Mb
Windows 64 bit Java ~21 Mb
More platforms (linux.gtk.x86, linux.gtk.x86_64, solaris.gtk.x86) + platform specific SWT ~21 Mb + 5 MB
uText library home     uText.zip 4Kb
Pixels library home     Pixels.zip     (Pixels library documentation) 82Kb

 

 

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