1.8" display and drawChar function

[Andy_123]

I am not sure if this is a right place to post, if not point me to the correct place please

it appears that default GFX library function drawChar updates one pixel at the time, setting window for each pixel individulally in drawPixel routine.

this causes a lot of overhead, as it is setting "window" 48 times instead of 1 for each character (size 1)
Set Window takes 7 SPI writes for each pixel, that we can avoid
Overhead is even greater for the font sizes 2 or larger.


I think it would be more efficient to set window for whole character once (6x8 size) and then push all pixels directly writing spidata
Hardware will take care of shifting to the next pixel and setting next row in this case.

But this will require to read all five bytes of each character before displaying and as a result 6 bytes of RAM instead of 1 for the "line" variable.

I did not write whole new routine, just made quick test for font size 1 and it works much faster, making text appearance almost instant.

Any comments or ideas?

[TheKitty]

COuld you put your test code snippet in a code window on a reply post? I'd be interested in your technique.

[Andy_123]

Code that I am using right now is implemented in my library conversion from Arduino to PIC18 and PIC32
Last night I got fully finctional code for any size not just size=1 that I initially did.
if you want to see PIC code - I can post it tonight

LAter on I am planning to go back to Arduino ST7735R libraries and add my drawChar code using low level direct SPI write routines setting Window only once per char

Once changed, I will post it here

[Andy_123]

Here is updated Arduino code

But, I guess my code works only if text background color is set, because it writes all pixels of the char
Original code only sets active pixels, alowing transaprent background

As a result, code below requires use of tft.setTextColor(color, bg); instead of tft.setTextColor(color);

Code: Select all

// draw a character fast
void Adafruit_ST7735::drawChar(int16_t x, int16_t y, unsigned char c,
             uint16_t color, uint16_t bg, uint8_t size) {
uint8_t line[6], i,ii,j,jj;

  if((x >= _width)            ||               // Clip right
     (y >= _height)           ||               // Clip bottom
     ((x + 5 * size - 1) < 0) ||               // Clip left
     ((y + 8 * size - 1) < 0))                  // Clip top
     return;
                                        //read 6 columns first: 5 from ROM, last=0
  for (i=0; i<5; i++ ){
     line[i] = pgm_read_byte(font+(c*5)+i);
}
   line[5]=0;                               // blank column
                                       // prepare colors
   uint8_t fHi =color>>8;
   uint8_t fLo =color;
   uint8_t bHi =bg>>8;
   uint8_t bLo =bg;


    setAddrWindow(x, y, x+6*size-1, y+8*size-1);   // set window for the full character
   *rsport |=  rspinmask;                     // prepare data connection
   *csport &= ~cspinmask;                     // set CS low, since setAddrWindow will set it high

   for (j = 0; j<8; j++) {               // row in character
      for (jj = 0; jj<size; jj++) {         // pixel row in each row
         for (i = 0; i<6; i++) {               // column in character
            for (ii = 0; ii<size; ii++) {// pixel column
              if (line[i] & 0x1)  {            // write color pixel
                 spiwrite(fHi);
                 spiwrite(fLo);
              } else {         
                 spiwrite(bHi);            // or write background color
                 spiwrite(bLo);
              }
            }                           // ii - pixel of a column done
            if(jj==(size-1)) line[i] >>= 1;      // shift source only if we did all pixel rows
         }                              // i - all columns in the row done
      }                                 // jj - all pixel in the row done
   }                                    // j - all rows done
   *csport |= cspinmask;                     // set cs high
}