LCARS Homeautomation Network

[Bluescreen]

Hi,

I just started to build a touchscreen terminal for my homeautomation network. It runs on a tiny Grashopper singel board computer (http://www.embedded-projects.net/index.php?page_id=237 that has connected an 800x600 TFT touchscreen.

Since I like those LCARS look I decided to do it like that. So I built a graphic library which draws all the nice LCARS elements onto the Linux framebuffer. So here is a first "hello LCARS" program's screenshot.



What do you think? I am not totally satisfied with the fonts. But truetype often is too blurry at this low screen resolution and I am not very good in drawing.

The library at the moment is only able to draw these things. The next is to implement loading and saving of such LCARS dialogs and the make the touchscreen work. The thing is a dumb terminal. It talks to my home automation server which sends all the commands to draw the dialogs and accepts all the touches of the screen.

Bluescreen

[LCARS 24]

The fonts look better than what we usually see.

[Bluescreen]

Hi LCARS24

thank you for that, especially from you, the "master of LCARS24"* :)

I used freetype to render swiss911uc to a png file. Then I tweaked it a bit and converted it with a grabber tool to 256 color bitmap fonts.

I also tried your lcars24 fonts. I extracted your font drawing routines and draws them also onto a png file. But it doesn't work right. Some letters like the "A" looks weird.* :-\

Does anybody have some hints about the structure of such LCARS control? I think the buttons on the left side should be the menu selection for the main parts of the system ("Environment", "Engineering", "Audiovision", "Communication", "Security",...). The buttons on the top right should then be used for accessing subpages of that like shown in the picture. In the main screen area then will appear the controls of that part, like temperature gauges and controls, song- or movie selections, ...

But some controls should be visible all the time for fast access, like the room lighting. But I don't know where to place them. Maybe at the upper L-bar, where the CANCEL button is in the screenshot?

Also I hope I can implement some kind of animation, like the altering numbers at the top or changing the colors of some buttons here and there.

Bluescreen

[josh Broughm]

Wow! this is nice stuff!

[Bluescreen]

Thank you,

I didn't do some thing with it, but I can save and load LCARS dialogs now. I also have a text display control. It can load giant text files (I tried with "Lord of the rings - The two towers"* ;) ) and you can then scroll through the text by a scrollbar or by tapping and dragging on the text area.

Last week I got a 24" touchscreen panel without display. I now try to put it into my 24" Full HD display. If that works, my PC can become a giant LCARS panel.

BTW.: I am looking for a nice LCARS screen or animation for Full HD resolution, which I can use as a standby image. Maybe an MSD or something. If anyone is willing to share one I would be very thankfull.

Greetings
Bluescreen

[deif]

^
pm or tell me, what you like...

[deif]

^^
here are some MSDs i did:

btw. i can provide all of them in high rez...

[Bluescreen]

Hi Deif,

thank you for that nice MSDs. In the meantime I found some of your other work on this site. I like the style of USS Titan but it has the wrong aspect ratio 16:9 for FullHD (1920x1080). But some of the others are nearly exactly 16:9.

I once found a Voyager MSD from you somewhere here on this site. I use that at the moment, but it is also wrong aspect, so I have black borders up and below the picture.

BTW.: I tried some month ago to mount a print of an MSD onto an defective TFT panel. Therefore I extracted the backlight and put the print onto it. Works nice. But my print isn't good enough, the black shines through. But maybe this is a idea for someone to build nice looking panels. Even a cracked display mostly work. Just peel of the broken front glas so you keep only the backlight and put the print onto it.

Greetings
Bluescreen

[Bluescreen]

Oops,

the Voyager MSD I mentioned was not from you, but from "explorer"