set a font in arduino ide for tft display for sale

ER-TFTM070-5-4125 is 7 inch tft lcd display with RA8875 controller board,arduino shield,examples,library.Optional touch panel,arduino mega2560,due or uno board.

When I try to change the font with those provided by the adafruit free library, the text remains with the default font.I read several post and forum, tried several different things in text mode and graphics mode, nothing works, font character remains by default.

This new library is a standalone library that contains the TFT driver as well as the graphics functions and fonts that were in the GFX library. This library has significant performance improvements when used with an UNO (or ATmega328 based Arduino) and MEGA.

Examples are included with the library, including graphics test programs. The example sketch TFT_Rainbow_one shows different ways of using the font support functions. This library now supports the "print" library so the formatting features of the "print" library can be used, for example to print to the TFT in Hexadecimal, for example:

The larger fonts are now Run Length Encoded (RLE) so that they occupy less FLASH space, this frees up space for the rest of the sketch. A byproduct of the RLE approach is that the font drawing is also speeded up so it is a win-win situation.

To use the F_AS_T performance option the ILI9341 based display must be connected to an MEGA as follows:MEGA +5V to display pin 1 (VCC) and pin 8 (LED) UNO 0V (GND) to display pin 2 (GND)

In the library Font 0 (GLCD font), 2, 4, 6 and 8 are enabled. Edit the Load_fonts.h file within the library folder to enable/disable fonts to save space.

TFT_ILI9341 library updated on 1st July 2015 to version 12, this latest version is attached here to step 8:Minor bug when rendering letter "T" in font 4 without background fixed

In this guide we’re going to show you how you can use the 1.8 TFT display with the Arduino. You’ll learn how to wire the display, write text, draw shapes and display images on the screen.

The 1.8 TFT is a colorful display with 128 x 160 color pixels. The display can load images from an SD card – it has an SD card slot at the back. The following figure shows the screen front and back view.

This module uses SPI communication – see the wiring below . To control the display we’ll use the TFT library, which is already included with Arduino IDE 1.0.5 and later.

The TFT display communicates with the Arduino via SPI communication, so you need to include the SPI library on your code. We also use the TFT library to write and draw on the display.

In which “Hello, World!” is the text you want to display and the (x, y) coordinate is the location where you want to start display text on the screen.

The 1.8 TFT display can load images from the SD card. To read from the SD card you use the SD library, already included in the Arduino IDE software. Follow the next steps to display an image on the display:

Note: some people find issues with this display when trying to read from the SD card. We don’t know why that happens. In fact, we tested a couple of times and it worked well, and then, when we were about to record to show you the final result, the display didn’t recognized the SD card anymore – we’re not sure if it’s a problem with the SD card holder that doesn’t establish a proper connection with the SD card. However, we are sure these instructions work, because we’ve tested them.

In this guide we’ve shown you how to use the 1.8 TFT display with the Arduino: display text, draw shapes and display images. You can easily add a nice visual interface to your projects using this display.

In this Arduino touch screen tutorial we will learn how to use TFT LCD Touch Screen with Arduino. You can watch the following video or read the written tutorial below.

For this tutorial I composed three examples. The first example is distance measurement using ultrasonic sensor. The output from the sensor, or the distance is printed on the screen and using the touch screen we can select the units, either centimeters or inches.

The next example is controlling an RGB LED using these three RGB sliders. For example if we start to slide the blue slider, the LED will light up in blue and increase the light as we would go to the maximum value. So the sliders can move from 0 to 255 and with their combination we can set any color to the RGB LED,  but just keep in mind that the LED cannot represent the colors that much accurate.

The third example is a game. Actually it’s a replica of the popular Flappy Bird game for smartphones. We can play the game using the push button or even using the touch screen itself.

As an example I am using a 3.2” TFT Touch Screen in a combination with a TFT LCD Arduino Mega Shield. We need a shield because the TFT Touch screen works at 3.3V and the Arduino Mega outputs are 5 V. For the first example I have the HC-SR04 ultrasonic sensor, then for the second example an RGB LED with three resistors and a push button for the game example. Also I had to make a custom made pin header like this, by soldering pin headers and bend on of them so I could insert them in between the Arduino Board and the TFT Shield.

Here’s the circuit schematic. We will use the GND pin, the digital pins from 8 to 13, as well as the pin number 14. As the 5V pins are already used by the TFT Screen I will use the pin number 13 as VCC, by setting it right away high in the setup section of code.

As the code is a bit longer and for better understanding I will post the source code of the program in sections with description for each section. And at the end of this article I will post the complete source code.

I will use the UTFT and URTouch libraries made by Henning Karlsen. Here I would like to say thanks to him for the incredible work he has done. The libraries enable really easy use of the TFT Screens, and they work with many different TFT screens sizes, shields and controllers. You can download these libraries from his website, RinkyDinkElectronics.com and also find a lot of demo examples and detailed documentation of how to use them.

After we include the libraries we need to create UTFT and URTouch objects. The parameters of these objects depends on the model of the TFT Screen and Shield and these details can be also found in the documentation of the libraries.

Next we need to define the fonts that are coming with the libraries and also define some variables needed for the program. In the setup section we need to initiate the screen and the touch, define the pin modes for the connected sensor, the led and the button, and initially call the drawHomeSreen() custom function, which will draw the home screen of the program.

So now I will explain how we can make the home screen of the program. With the setBackColor() function we need to set the background color of the text, black one in our case. Then we need to set the color to white, set the big font and using the print() function, we will print the string “Arduino TFT Tutorial” at the center of the screen and 10 pixels  down the Y – Axis of the screen. Next we will set the color to red and draw the red line below the text. After that we need to set the color back to white, and print the two other strings, “by HowToMechatronics.com” using the small font and “Select Example” using the big font.

Next is the distance sensor button. First we need to set the color and then using the fillRoundRect() function we will draw the rounded rectangle. Then we will set the color back to white and using the drawRoundRect() function we will draw another rounded rectangle on top of the previous one, but this one will be without a fill so the overall appearance of the button looks like it has a frame. On top of the button we will print the text using the big font and the same background color as the fill of the button. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.

Now we need to make the buttons functional so that when we press them they would send us to the appropriate example. In the setup section we set the character ‘0’ to the currentPage variable, which will indicate that we are at the home screen. So if that’s true, and if we press on the screen this if statement would become true and using these lines here we will get the X and Y coordinates where the screen has been pressed. If that’s the area that covers the first button we will call the drawDistanceSensor() custom function which will activate the distance sensor example. Also we will set the character ‘1’ to the variable currentPage which will indicate that we are at the first example. The drawFrame() custom function is used for highlighting the button when it’s pressed. The same procedure goes for the two other buttons.

drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.

getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor

So the drawDistanceSensor() custom function needs to be called only once when the button is pressed in order to draw all the graphics of this example in similar way as we described for the home screen. However, the getDistance() custom function needs to be called repeatedly in order to print the latest results of the distance measured by the sensor.

Here’s that function which uses the ultrasonic sensor to calculate the distance and print the values with SevenSegNum font in green color, either in centimeters or inches. If you need more details how the ultrasonic sensor works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. Back in the loop section we can see what happens when we press the select unit buttons as well as the back button.

Ok next is the RGB LED Control example. If we press the second button, the drawLedControl() custom function will be called only once for drawing the graphic of that example and the setLedColor() custom function will be repeatedly called. In this function we use the touch screen to set the values of the 3 sliders from 0 to 255. With the if statements we confine the area of each slider and get the X value of the slider. So the values of the X coordinate of each slider are from 38 to 310 pixels and we need to map these values into values from 0 to 255 which will be used as a PWM signal for lighting up the LED. If you need more details how the RGB LED works you can check my particular tutorialfor that. The rest of the code in this custom function is for drawing the sliders. Back in the loop section we only have the back button which also turns off the LED when pressed.

In order the code to work and compile you will have to include an addition “.c” file in the same directory with the Arduino sketch. This file is for the third game example and it’s a bitmap of the bird. For more details how this part of the code work  you can check my particular tutorial. Here you can download that file:

drawDistanceSensor(); // It is called only once, because in the next iteration of the loop, this above if statement will be false so this funtion won"t be called. This function will draw the graphics of the first example.

getDistance(); // Gets distance from the sensor and this function is repeatedly called while we are at the first example in order to print the lasest results from the distance sensor

Whatever you are currently celebrating, Christmas, Hanukkah, Jul, Samhain, Festivus, or any other end-of-the-civil-year festivities, I wish you a good time! This December 25th edition of the Nextion Sunday Blog won"t be loaded with complex mathematical theory or hyper-efficient but difficult to understand code snippets. It"s about news and information. Please read below...After two theory-loaded blog posts about handling data array-like in strings (Strings, arrays, and the less known sp(lit)str(ing) function and Strings & arrays - continued) which you are highly recommended to read before continuing here, if you haven"t already, it"s big time to see how things work in practice! We"ll use a string variable as a lookup lookup table containing data of one single wave period and add this repeatedly to a waveform component until it"s full.A few weeks ago, I wrote this article about using a text variable as an array, either an array of strings or an array of numbers, using the covx conversion function in addition for the latter, to extract single elements with the help of the spstr function. It"s a convenient and almost a "one fits all" solution for most use cases and many of the demo projects or the sample code attached to the Nextion Sunday Blog articles made use of it, sometimes even without mentioning it explicitly since it"s almost self-explaining. Then, I got a message from a reader, writing: "... Why then didn"t you use it for the combined sine / cosine lookup table in the flicker free turbo gauge project?"105 editions of the Nextion Sunday blog in a little over two years - time to look back and forth at the same time. Was all the stuff I wrote about interesting for my readers? Is it possible at all to satisfy everybody - hobbyists, makers, and professionals - at the same time? Are people (re-)using the many many HMI demo projects and code snippets? Is anybody interested in the explanation of all the underlying basics like the algorithms for calculating square roots and trigonometric functions with Nextion"s purely integer based language? Are optimized code snippets which allow to save a few milliseconds here and there helpful to other developers?Looking through the different Nextion user groups on social networks, the Nextion user forum and a few not so official but Nextion related forums can be surprising. Sometimes, Nextion newbies ask questions or have issues although the required function is well (in a condensed manner for the experienced developer, I admit) documented on the Nextion Instruction Set page, accessible through the menu of this website. On top of that, there is for sure one of my more than 100 Sunday blog articles which deals not only with that function, but goes often even beyond the usual usage of it. Apparently, I should sometimes move away from always trying to push the limits and listen to the "back to the roots!" calls by my potential readers...Do you remember the (almost) full screen sized flicker free and ultra rapid gauge we designed in June? And this without using the built-in Gauge component? If not, it"s time to read this article first, to understand today"s improvements. The June 2022 version does its job perfectly, the needle movement is quick and smooth, and other components can be added close to the outer circle without flickering since there is no background which needs constantly to be redrawn. But there was a minor and only esthetic weak point: The needle was a 1px thin line, sometimes difficult to see. Thus, already a short time after publishing, some readers contacted me and asked if there were a way to make the needle thicker, at least 2 pixels.

Argentina, Azerbaijan Republic, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, British Virgin Islands, Burundi, Cape Verde Islands, Cayman Islands, Congo, Republic of the, Cyprus, Egypt, French Polynesia, Gambia, Gibraltar, Greenland, Grenada, Guadeloupe, Guyana, India, Iraq, Jersey, Jordan, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liechtenstein, Macau, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Martinique, Mauritius, Mayotte, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, Nauru, Nepal, New Caledonia, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Rwanda, Senegal, Serbia, Sierra Leone, Slovakia, South Africa, Swaziland, Tajikistan, Tanzania, Togo, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vanuatu, Zimbabwe

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Arduino TFT Display and Font Library: I am quite a fan of the Arduino as there is so much software already available on the internet, this makes completing new projects easier!…

Adding a display to your Arduino can serve many purposes. Since a common use for microcontrollers is reading data from sensors, a display allows you to see this data in real-time without needing to use the serial monitor within the Arduino IDE. It also allows you to give your projects a personal touch with text, images, or even interactivity through a touch screen.

Transparent Organic Light Emitting Diode (TOLED) is a type of LED that, as you can guess, has a transparent screen. It builds on the now common OLED screens found in smartphones and TVs, but with a transparent display, offers up some new possibilities for Arduino screens.

Take for example this brilliant project that makes use of TOLED displays. By stacking 10 transparent OLED screens in parallel, creator Sean Hodgins has converted a handful of 2D screens into a solid-state volumetric display. This kind of display creates an image that has 3-dimensional depth, taking us one step closer to the neon, holographic screens we imagine in the future.

Crystalfontz has a tiny monochrome (light blue) 1.51" TOLED that has 128x56 pixels. As the technology is more recent than the following displays in this list, the cost is higher too. One of these screens can be purchased for around $26, but for certain applications, it might just be worth it.

The liquid crystal display (LCD) is the most common display to find in DIY projects and home appliances alike. This is no surprise as they are simple to operate, low-powered, and incredibly cheap.

This type of display can vary in design. Some are larger, with more character spaces and rows; some come with a backlight. Most attach directly to the board through 8 or 12 connections to the Arduino pins, making them incompatible with boards with fewer pins available. In this instance, buy a screen with an I2C adapter, allowing control using only four pins.

Available for only a few dollars (or as little as a couple of dollars on AliExpress with included I2C adapter), these simple displays can be used to give real-time feedback to any project.

The screens are capable of a large variety of preset characters which cover most use cases in a variety of languages. You can control your LCD using the Liquid Crystal Library provided by Arduino. The display() and noDisplay() methods write to the LCD, as shown in the official tutorial on the Arduino website.

Are you looking for something simple to display numbers and a few basic characters? Maybe you are looking for something with that old-school arcade feel? A seven-segment display might suit your needs.

These simple boards are made up of 7 LEDs (8 if you include the dot), and work much like normal LEDs with a common Anode or Cathode connection. This allows them to take one connection to V+ (or GND for common cathode) and be controlled from the pins of your Arduino. By combining these pins in code, you can create numbers and several letters, along with more abstract designs—anything you can dream up using the segments available!

Next on our list is the 5110 display, also affectionately known as the Nokia display due to its wide use in the beloved and nigh indestructible Nokia 3310.

These tiny LCD screens are monochrome and have a screen size of 84 x 48 pixels, but don"t let that fool you. Coming in at around $2 on AliExpress, these displays are incredibly cheap and usually come with a backlight as standard.

Depending on which library you use, the screen can display multiple lines of text in various fonts. It"s also capable of displaying images, and there is free software designed to help get your creations on screen. While the refresh rate is too slow for detailed animations, these screens are hardy enough to be included in long-term, always-on projects.

For a step up in resolution and functionality, an OLED display might be what you are looking for. At first glance, these screens look similar to the 5110 screens, but they are a significant upgrade. The standard 0.96" screens are 128 x 64 monochrome, and come with a backlight as standard.

They connect to your Arduino using I2C, meaning that alongside the V+ and GND pins, only two further pins are required to communicate with the screen. With various sizes and full color options available, these displays are incredibly versatile.

For a project to get you started with OLED displays, our Electronic D20 build will teach you everything you need to know -- and you"ll end up with the ultimate geeky digital dice for your gaming sessions!

These displays can be used in the same way as the others we have mentioned so far, but their refresh rate allows for much more ambitious projects. The basic monochrome screen is available on Amazon.

Thin-film-transistor liquid-crystal displays (TFT LCDs) are in many ways another step up in quality when it comes to options for adding a screen to your Arduino. Available with or without touchscreen functionality, they also add the ability to load bitmap files from an on-board microSD card slot.

Arduino have an official guide for setting up their non-touchscreen TFT LCD screen. For a video tutorial teaching you the basics of setting up the touchscreen version, YouTuber educ8s.tv has you covered:

https://www.anrdoezrs.net/links/7251228/type/dlg/sid/UUmuoUeUpU43826/https://www.youtube.com/supported_browsers?next_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DIcIY2pWursc

With the touchscreen editions of these screens costing less than $10 on AliExpress, these displays are another great choice for when you need a nice-looking display for your project.

Looking for something a little different? An E-paper (or E-ink depending on who you ask) display might be right for you. These screens differ from the others giving a much more natural reading experience, it is no surprise that this technology is the cornerstone of almost every e-reader available.

The reason these displays look so good is down to the way they function. Each "pixel" contains charged particles between two electrodes. By switching the charge of each electrode, you can influence the negatively charged black particles to swap places with the positively charged white particles.

This is what gives e-paper such a natural feel. As a bonus, once the ink is moved to its location, it uses no power to keep it there. This makes these displays naturally low-power to operate.

This article has covered most options available for Arduino displays, though there are definitely more weird and wonderful ways to add feedback to your DIY devices.

Now that you have an idea of what is out there, why not incorporate a screen into your DIY smart home setup? If retro gaming is more your thing, why not create some retro games on Arduino?

In this article, you will learn how to use TFT LCDs by Arduino boards. From basic commands to professional designs and technics are all explained here. At the end of this article, you can :Write texts and numbers with your desired font.

In electronic’s projects, creating an interface between user and system is very important. This interface could be created by displaying useful data, a menu, and ease of access. A beautiful design is also very important.

There are several components to achieve this. LEDs, 7-segments, Character and Graphic displays, and full-color TFT LCDs. The right component for your projects depends on the amount of data to be displayed, type of user interaction, and processor capacity.

TFT LCD is a variant of a liquid-crystal display (LCD) that uses thin-film-transistor (TFT) technology to improve image qualities such as addressability and contrast. A TFT LCD is an active matrix LCD, in contrast to passive matrix LCDs or simple, direct-driven LCDs with a few segments.

In Arduino-based projects, the processor frequency is low. So it is not possible to display complex, high definition images and high-speed motions. Therefore, full-color TFT LCDs can only be used to display simple data and commands.

In this article, we have used libraries and advanced technics to display data, charts, menu, etc. with a professional design. This can move your project presentation to a higher level.

Size of displays affects your project parameters. Bigger Display is not always better. if you want to display high-resolution images and signs, you should choose a big size display with higher resolution. But it decreases the speed of your processing, needs more space and also needs more current to run.

After choosing the right display, It’s time to choose the right controller. If you want to display characters, tests, numbers and static images and the speed of display is not important, the Atmega328 Arduino boards (such as Arduino UNO) are a proper choice. If the size of your code is big, The UNO board may not be enough. You can use Arduino Mega2560 instead. And if you want to show high resolution images and motions with high speed, you should use the ARM core Arduino boards such as Arduino DUE.

In electronics/computer hardware a display driver is usually a semiconductor integrated circuit (but may alternatively comprise a state machine made of discrete logic and other components) which provides an interface function between a microprocessor, microcontroller, ASIC or general-purpose peripheral interface and a particular type of display device, e.g. LCD, LED, OLED, ePaper, CRT, Vacuum fluorescent or Nixie.

The display driver will typically accept commands and data using an industry-standard general-purpose serial or parallel interface, such as TTL, CMOS, RS232, SPI, I2C, etc. and generate signals with suitable voltage, current, timing and demultiplexing to make the display show the desired text or image.

The LCDs manufacturers use different drivers in their products. Some of them are more popular and some of them are very unknown. To run your display easily, you should use Arduino LCDs libraries and add them to your code. Otherwise running the display may be very difficult. There are many free libraries you can find on the internet but the important point about the libraries is their compatibility with the LCD’s driver. The driver of your LCD must be known by your library. In this article, we use the Adafruit GFX library and MCUFRIEND KBV library and example codes. You can download them from the following links.

You must add the library and then upload the code. If it is the first time you run an Arduino board, don’t worry. Just follow these steps:Go to www.arduino.cc/en/Main/Software and download the software of your OS. Install the IDE software as instructed.

The second adds a library that supports drivers of MCUFRIEND Arduino display shields.#include "TouchScreen.h" // only when you want to use touch screen#include "bitmap_mono.h" // when you want to display a bitmap image from library#include "bitmap_RGB.h" // when you want to display a bitmap image from library#include "Fonts/FreeSans9pt7b.h" // when you want other fonts#include "Fonts/FreeSans12pt7b.h" // when you want other fonts#include "Fonts/FreeSerif12pt7b.h" // when you want other fonts#include "FreeDefaultFonts.h" // when you want other fonts#include "SPI.h" // using sdcard for display bitmap image#include "SD.h"

By these two functions, You can find out the resolution of the display. Just add them to the code and put the outputs in a uint16_t variable. Then read it from the Serial port by Serial.println();. First add Serial.begin(9600); in setup().

fillScreen function change the color of screen to t color. The t should be a 16bit variable containing UTFT color code.#define BLACK 0x0000#define NAVY 0x000F#define DARKGREEN 0x03E0#define DARKCYAN 0x03EF#define MAROON 0x7800#define PURPLE 0x780F#define OLIVE 0x7BE0#define LIGHTGREY 0xC618#define DARKGREY 0x7BEF#define BLUE 0x001F#define GREEN 0x07E0#define CYAN 0x07FF#define RED 0xF800#define MAGENTA 0xF81F#define YELLOW 0xFFE0#define WHITE 0xFFFF#define ORANGE 0xFD20#define GREENYELLOW 0xAFE5#define PINK 0xF81F

Drawing Linestft.drawFastVLine(x,y,h,t);//drawFastVLine(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t h, uint16_t t)tft.drawFastHLine(x,y,w,t);//drawFastHLine(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t w, uint16_t t)tft.drawLine(xi,yi,xj,yj,t);//drawLine(int16_t x0, int16_t y0, int16_t x1, int16_t y1, uint16_t t)

drawLinefunction draws a line that starts in xi and yi locationends is in xj and yj and the color is t.for (uint16_t a=0; a<5; a++){ tft.drawFastVLine(x+a, y, h, t);}for (uint16_t a=0; a<5; a++){ tft.drawFastHLine(x, y+a, w, t);}for (uint16_t a=0; a<5; a++){ tft.drawLine(xi+a, yi, xj+a, yj, t);}for (uint16_t a=0; a<5; a++){ tft.drawLine(xi, yi+a, xj, yj+a, t);}

These three blocks of code draw lines like the previous code with 5-pixel thickness.tft.fillRect(x,y,w,h,t);//fillRect(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t w, int16_t h, uint16_t t)tft.drawRect(x,y,w,h,t);//drawRect(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t w, int16_t h, uint16_t t)tft.fillRoundRect(x,y,w,h,r,t);//fillRoundRect (int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t w, int16_t h, uint8_t R , uint16_t t)tft.drawRoundRect(x,y,w,h,r,t);//drawRoundRect(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t w, int16_t h, uint8_t R , uint16_t t)

Drawing Circlestft.drawCircle(x,y,r,t); //drawCircle(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t r, uint16_t t)tft.fillCircle(x,y,r,t); //fillCircle(int16_t x, int16_t y, int16_t r, uint16_t t)

fillCirclefunction draws a filled circle in x and y location and r radius and t color.for (int p = 0; p < 4000; p++){ j = 120 * (sin(PI * p / 2000));i = 120 * (cos(PI * p / 2000));j2 = 60 * (sin(PI * p / 2000));i2 = 60 * (cos(PI * p / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 160, j2 + 160, i + 160, j + 160, col[n]);}

Drawing Trianglestft.drawTriangle(x1,y1,x2,y2,x3,y3,t);//drawTriangle(int16_t x1, int16_t y1, int16_t x2, int16_t y2, int16_t x3, int16_t y3,// uint16_t t)tft.fillTriangle(x1,y1,x2,y2,x3,y3,t);//fillTriangle(int16_t x1, int16_t y1, int16_t x2, int16_t y2, int16_t x3, int16_t y3,// uint16_t t)

This code sets the cursor position to of x and ytft.setTextColor(t); //setTextColor(uint16_t t)tft.setTextColor(t,b); //setTextColor(uint16_t t, uint16_t b)

The second function just displays the string.showmsgXY(x,y,sz,&FreeSans9pt7b,"www.Electropeak.com");//void showmsgXY(int x, int y, int sz, const GFXfont *f, const char *msg)void showmsgXY(int x, int y, int sz, const GFXfont *f, const char *msg){ uint16_t x1, y1;uint16_t wid, ht;tft.setFont(f);tft.setCursor(x, y);tft.setTextColor(0x0000);tft.setTextSize(sz);tft.print(msg);}

This function changes the font of the text. You should add this function and font libraries.for (int j = 0; j < 20; j++) {tft.setCursor(145, 290);int color = tft.color565(r -= 12, g -= 12, b -= 12);tft.setTextColor(color);tft.print("www.Electropeak.com");delay(30);}

First you should convert your image to hex code. Download the software from the following link. if you don’t want to change the settings of the software, you must invert the color of the image and make the image horizontally mirrored and rotate it 90 degrees counterclockwise. Now add it to the software and convert it. Open the exported file and copy the hex code to Arduino IDE. x and y are locations of the image. sx and sy are sizes of image. you can change the color of the image in the last input.

Upload your image and download the converted file that the UTFT libraries can process. Now copy the hex code to Arduino IDE. x and y are locations of the image. sx and sy are size of the image.

In this template, We just used a string and 8 filled circles that change their colors in order. To draw circles around a static point, You can use sin(); and cos(); functions. you should define the PI number. To change colors, you can use color565(); function and replace your RGB code.#include "Adafruit_GFX.h"#include "MCUFRIEND_kbv.h"MCUFRIEND_kbv tft;#include "Fonts/FreeSans9pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSans12pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSerif12pt7b.h"#include "FreeDefaultFonts.h"#define PI 3.1415926535897932384626433832795int col[8];void showmsgXY(int x, int y, int sz, const GFXfont *f, const char *msg){int16_t x1, y1;uint16_t wid, ht;tft.setFont(f);tft.setCursor(x, y);tft.setTextColor(0x0000);tft.setTextSize(sz);tft.print(msg);}void setup() {tft.reset();Serial.begin(9600);uint16_t ID = tft.readID();tft.begin(ID);tft.setRotation(1);tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.fillScreen(0xffff);showmsgXY(170, 250, 2, &FreeSans9pt7b, "Loading...");col[0] = tft.color565(155, 0, 50);col[1] = tft.color565(170, 30, 80);col[2] = tft.color565(195, 60, 110);col[3] = tft.color565(215, 90, 140);col[4] = tft.color565(230, 120, 170);col[5] = tft.color565(250, 150, 200);col[6] = tft.color565(255, 180, 220);col[7] = tft.color565(255, 210, 240);}void loop() {for (int i = 8; i > 0; i--) {tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-i * PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-i * PI / 4)), 10, col[0]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 1)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 1)*PI / 4)), 10, col[1]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 2)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 2)*PI / 4)), 10, col[2]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 3)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 3)*PI / 4)), 10, col[3]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 4)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 4)*PI / 4)), 10, col[4]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 5)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 5)*PI / 4)), 10, col[5]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 6)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 6)*PI / 4)), 10, col[6]); delay(15);tft.fillCircle(240 + 40 * (cos(-(i + 7)*PI / 4)), 120 + 40 * (sin(-(i + 7)*PI / 4)), 10, col[7]); delay(15);}}

In this template, We converted a.jpg image to.c file and added to the code, wrote a string and used the fade code to display. Then we used scroll code to move the screen left. Download the.h file and add it to the folder of the Arduino sketch.#include "Adafruit_GFX.h" // Core graphics library#include "MCUFRIEND_kbv.h" // Hardware-specific libraryMCUFRIEND_kbv tft;#include "Ard_Logo.h"#define BLACK 0x0000#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define WHITE 0xFFFF#define GREY 0x8410#include "Fonts/FreeSans9pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSans12pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSerif12pt7b.h"#include "FreeDefaultFonts.h"void showmsgXY(int x, int y, int sz, const GFXfont *f, const char *msg){int16_t x1, y1;uint16_t wid, ht;tft.setFont(f);tft.setCursor(x, y);tft.setTextSize(sz);tft.println(msg);}uint8_t r = 255, g = 255, b = 255;uint16_t color;void setup(){Serial.begin(9600);uint16_t ID = tft.readID();tft.begin(ID);tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.setRotation(1);}void loop(void){tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.fillScreen(WHITE);tft.drawRGBBitmap(100, 50, Logo, 350, 200);delay(1000);tft.setTextSize(2);for (int j = 0; j < 20; j++) {color = tft.color565(r -= 12, g -= 12, b -= 12);tft.setTextColor(color);showmsgXY(95, 280, 1, &FreeSans12pt7b, "ELECTROPEAK PRESENTS");delay(20);}delay(1000);for (int i = 0; i < 480; i++) {tft.vertScroll(0, 480, i);tft.drawFastVLine(i, 0, 320, 0xffff); // vertical linedelay(5);}while (1);}

In this template, We used draw lines, filled circles, and string display functions.#include "Adafruit_GFX.h"#include "MCUFRIEND_kbv.h"MCUFRIEND_kbv tft;uint16_t ox=0,oy=0;int ave=0, avec=0, avet=0;////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////void aveg(void){int z=0;Serial.println(ave);Serial.println(avec);avet=ave/avec;Serial.println(avet);avet=avet*32;for (int i=0; i<24; i++){for (uint16_t a=0; a<3; a++){tft.drawLine(avet+a, z, avet+a, z+10, 0xFB21);} // thickfor (uint16_t a=0; a<2; a++){ tft.drawLine(avet-a, z, avet-a, z+10, 0xFB21);} delay(100); z=z+20; } } ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// void dchart_10x10(uint16_t nx,uint16_t ny) { ave+=nx; avec++; nx=nx*32; ny=ny*48; tft.drawCircle(nx, ny, 10, 0x0517); tft.drawCircle(nx, ny, 9, 0x0517); tft.fillCircle(nx, ny, 7, 0x0517); delay (100); ox=nx; oy=ny; } /////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// void dotchart_10x10(uint16_t nx,uint16_t ny) { ave+=nx; avec++; nx=nx*32; ny=ny*48; int plus=0; float fplus=0; int sign=0; int y=0,x=0; y=oy; x=ox; float xmines, ymines; xmines=nx-ox; ymines=ny-oy; if (ox>nx){xmines=ox-nx;sign=1;}elsesign=0;for (int a=0; a<(ny-oy); a++){fplus+=xmines/ymines;plus=fplus;if (sign==1)tft.drawFastHLine(0, y, x-plus, 0xBFDF);elsetft.drawFastHLine(0, y, x+plus, 0xBFDF);y++;delay(5);}for (uint16_t a=0; a<2; a++){tft.drawLine(ox+a, oy, nx+a, ny, 0x01E8);} // thickfor (uint16_t a=0; a<2; a++){tft.drawLine(ox, oy+a, nx, ny+a, 0x01E8);}ox=nx;oy=ny;}////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////void setup() {tft.reset();Serial.begin(9600);uint16_t ID = tft.readID();tft.begin(ID);}void loop() {tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.fillScreen(0xffff);dotchart_10x10(3, 0);dotchart_10x10(2, 1);dotchart_10x10(4, 2);dotchart_10x10(4, 3);dotchart_10x10(5, 4);dotchart_10x10(3, 5);dotchart_10x10(6, 6);dotchart_10x10(7, 7);dotchart_10x10(9, 8);dotchart_10x10(8, 9);dotchart_10x10(10, 10);dchart_10x10(3, 0);dchart_10x10(2, 1);dchart_10x10(4, 2);dchart_10x10(4, 3);dchart_10x10(5, 4);dchart_10x10(3, 5);dchart_10x10(6, 6);dchart_10x10(7, 7);dchart_10x10(9, 8);dchart_10x10(8, 9);dchart_10x10(10, 10);tft.setRotation(1);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0x01E8);tft.setCursor(20, 20);tft.print("Average");int dl=20;for (int i=0;i<6;i++){for (uint16_t a=0; a<3; a++){tft.drawLine(dl, 40+a, dl+10, 40+a, 0xFB21);}dl+=16;}tft.setRotation(0);aveg();while(1);}

In this template, We added a converted image to code and then used two black and white arcs to create the pointer of volumes. Download the.h file and add it to the folder of the Arduino sketch.#include "Adafruit_GFX.h"#include "MCUFRIEND_kbv.h"MCUFRIEND_kbv tft;#include "Volume.h"#define BLACK 0x0000int a = 0,b = 4000,c = 1000,d = 3000;int s=2000;int j, j2;int i, i2;int White;void setup(){Serial.begin(9600);uint16_t ID = tft.readID();tft.begin(ID);tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.setRotation(1);}void loop(void){tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.fillScreen(BLACK);tft.drawRGBBitmap(0, 0, test, 480, 320);White = tft.color565(255, 255, 255);while(1){if (a < s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * a / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * a / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * a / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * a / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 62, j2 + 240, i + 62, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (a-300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (a-300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (a-300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (a-300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 62, j2 + 240, i + 62, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(50, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(50, 285);tft.print(a / 40); tft.print("%");a++;}if (b < s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * b / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * b / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * b / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * b / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 180, j2 + 240, i + 180, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (b-300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (b-300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (b-300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (b-300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 180, j2 + 240, i + 180, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(168, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(168, 285);tft.print(b / 40); tft.print("%");b++;}if (c < s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * c / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * c / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * c / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * c / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 297, j2 + 240, i + 297, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (c-300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (c-300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (c-300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (c-300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 297, j2 + 240, i + 297, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(286, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(286, 285);tft.print(c / 40); tft.print("%");c++;}if (d < s) { j = 14 * (sin(PI * d / 2000)); i = 14 * (cos(PI * d / 2000)); j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * d / 2000)); i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * d / 2000)); tft.drawLine(i2 + 414, j2 + 240, i + 414, j + 240, White); j = 14 * (sin(PI * (d-300) / 2000)); i = 14 * (cos(PI * (d-300) / 2000)); j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (d-300) / 2000)); i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (d-300) / 2000)); tft.drawLine(i2 + 414, j2 + 240, i + 414, j + 240, 0x0000); tft.fillRect(402, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000); tft.setTextSize(2); tft.setTextColor(0xffff); tft.setCursor(402, 285); tft.print(d / 40); tft.print("%"); d++;} if (a > s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * a / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * a / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * a / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * a / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 62, j2 + 240, i + 62, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (a+300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (a+300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (a+300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (a+300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 62, j2 + 240, i + 62, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(50, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(50, 285);tft.print(a / 40); tft.print("%");a--;}if (b > s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * b / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * b / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * b / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * b / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 180, j2 + 240, i + 180, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (b+300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (b+300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (b+300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (b+300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 180, j2 + 240, i + 180, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(168, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(168, 285);tft.print(b / 40); tft.print("%");b--;}if (c > s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * c / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * c / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * c / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * c / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 297, j2 + 240, i + 297, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (c+300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (c+300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (c+300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (c+300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 297, j2 + 240, i + 297, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(286, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(286, 285);tft.print(c / 40); tft.print("%");c--;}if (d > s) {j = 14 * (sin(PI * d / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * d / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * d / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * d / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 414, j2 + 240, i + 414, j + 240, White);j = 14 * (sin(PI * (d+300) / 2000));i = 14 * (cos(PI * (d+300) / 2000));j2 = 1 * (sin(PI * (d+300) / 2000));i2 = 1 * (cos(PI * (d+300) / 2000));tft.drawLine(i2 + 414, j2 + 240, i + 414, j + 240, 0x0000);tft.fillRect(402, 285, 30, 30, 0x0000);tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(402, 285);tft.print(d / 40); tft.print("%");d--;}}}

In this template, We just display some images by RGBbitmap and bitmap functions. Just make a code for touchscreen and use this template. Download the.h file and add it to folder of the Arduino sketch.#include "Adafruit_GFX.h" // Core graphics library#include "MCUFRIEND_kbv.h" // Hardware-specific libraryMCUFRIEND_kbv tft;#define BLACK 0x0000#define RED 0xF800#define GREEN 0x07E0#define WHITE 0xFFFF#define GREY 0x8410#include "images.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSans9pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSans12pt7b.h"#include "Fonts/FreeSerif12pt7b.h"#include "FreeDefaultFonts.h"int a = 3000;int b = 4000;int j, j2;int i, i2;void showmsgXY(int x, int y, int sz, const GFXfont *f, const char *msg){int16_t x1, y1;uint16_t wid, ht;// tft.drawFastHLine(0, y, tft.width(), 0xffff);tft.setFont(f);tft.setCursor(x, y);tft.setTextColor(WHITE);tft.setTextSize(sz);tft.print(msg);delay(1000);}void setup(){Serial.begin(9600);uint16_t ID = tft.readID();tft.begin(ID);tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.setRotation(1);}void loop(void){tft.invertDisplay(true);tft.fillScreen(BLACK);tft.drawRGBBitmap(0, 0, test, 480, 320);tft.drawBitmap(20, 20, Line1, 45, 45, 0xffff);//batterytft.drawBitmap(65, 20, Line2, 45, 45, 0xffff);//wifitft.drawBitmap(125, 25, Line3, 45, 45, 0xffff);//mailtft.drawBitmap(185, 25, Line4, 45, 45, 0xffff);//instagramtft.drawBitmap(245, 25, Line6, 45, 45, 0xffff);//powertft.drawBitmap(20, 260, Line5, 45, 45, 0xffff);//twittertft.drawBitmap(410, 140, Line7, 45, 45, 0xffff);//raintft.setTextSize(6);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);tft.setCursor(280, 210);tft.print("20:45");tft.setTextSize(2);tft.setTextColor(0xffff);showmsgXY(330, 280, 1, &FreeSans12pt7b, "Saturday");showmsgXY(300, 305, 1, &FreeSans12pt7b, "6 October 2018");while (1);}

Final RemarksThe speed of playing all the GIF files are edited and we made them faster or slower for better understanding. The speed of motions depends on the speed of your processor or type of code or size and thickness of elements in the code.

×SPECIAL OFFER (VALID UNTIL NOVEMBER 1ST 2018): If you order the 3.5″ LCD from ElectroPeak, our technical staff will design your desired template for free! Just send an email to info@electropeak.Com containing your order number and requirements ;)

The new line of 3.5” TFT displays with IPS technology is now available! Three touchscreen options are available: capacitive, resistive, or without a touchscreen.

Touchscreen displays are everywhere! Phones, tablets, self-serve kiosks, bank machines and thousands of other devices we interact with make use of touchscreen displays to provide an intuitive user interface.

Today we will learn how touchscreens work, and how to use a common inexpensive resistive touchscreen shield for the Arduino.  Future videos and articles will cover capacitive touchscreens, as well as a touchscreen HAT for the Raspberry Pi.

Although touchscreens seem to be everywhere these days we tend to forget that just a few decades ago these devices were just science fiction for most of us. For many people, the touchscreen concept was introduced 30 years ago in the television seriesStar Trek: The Next Generation.

Eric A Johnson, a researcher at the Royal Radar Establishment in Malvern UK is credited for describing and then prototyping the first practical touchscreen. HIs device was a capacitive touchscreen, and it’s first commercial use was on air traffic control screens. However, the touchscreens used then were not transparent, instead, they were mounted on the frame of the CRT display.

In 1972, a group at the University of Illinois filed for a patent on an optical touchscreen. This device used a 16×16 array of LEDs and phototransistors, mounted on a frame around a CRT display. Placing your finger, or another solid object, on the screen would break two of the light beams, this was used to determine the position and respond accordingly.

The first transparent touchscreen was developed atCERNin 1973. CERN is also home to the Large Hadron Collider, and this is where Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web.

The first resistive touchscreen was developed by American inventor George Samuel Hurst in 1975, although the first practical version was not produced until 1982.

In 1982 theUniversity of Toronto’sInput Research Group developed the first multi-touch touchscreen, a screen that could interpret more than one touch at the same time.  The original device used a video camera behind a frosted piece of glass. Three years later the same group developed a multi-touch tablet that used a capacitive touchscreen instead.

The first commercial product to use a touchscreen was a point-of-sale terminal developed by Atari and displayed at the 1986 COMDEX expo in Las Vegas. The next year Casio launched theCasio PB-1000 pocket computerwith a touchscreen consisting of a simple 4×4 matrix.

LG created the world’s first capacitive touchscreen phone, theLG Pradaused a capacitive touchscreen and was released in early 2007. A few weeks later Apple released its first iPhone.

Most early touchscreen devices were resistive, as this technology is generally less expensive than capacitive screens. However, nowadays capacitive screens are more common, being used in the majority of smartphones and tablets.

Although they were invented after capacitive touchscreens, resistive touchscreens are probably the most common type used by hobbyists. The reason for that is the price and performance, resistive touchscreens are cheaper than capacitive ones and they are generally more accurate.

A resistive touchscreen consists of two thin layers of material, separated by a tiny gap.  Spacers are used to maintain the gap and keep the two sheets apart.

Both sheets have a conductive side, and they are arranged so that the conductive sides face one another.  The top sheet is both flexible and transparent. The bottom one is also transparent, however, it is usually solid.

In operation, the resistance between the two sheets is measured at different points. Pressing down upon the tip sheet will change that resistance, and by comparing the measurement points it can be determined where the screen was pressed.  Essentially, it creates a pair of voltage dividers.

In a 4-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are two electrodes or “busbars” on each of the conductive layers.  On one layer these electrodes are mounted on the two X-axis sides, the other layer has them on the two y-axes.

This is the most inexpensive method of designing a resistive touchscreen. The touchscreen display that we will be working with today uses this arrangement.

In a 5-Wire Analog touchscreen, there are four wires, one connected to a circular electrode on each corner of the bottom layer. A fifth wire is connected to a “sensing wire”, which is embedded in the top layer.

Touching any point on the screen causes current to flow to each of the bottom electrodes, measuring all four electrode currents determines the position that the screen was touched.

This 8-Wire Analog touchscreen uses an arrangement of electrodes identical to the 4-Wire variety. The difference is that there are two wires connected to each electrode, one to each end.

Capacitive touchscreens are actually older technology than resistive displays.  They are commonly used in phones and tablets, so you’re probably familiar with them.

The capacitive touchscreen makes use of the conductivity of the human body. The touchscreen itself consists of a glass plate that has been treated with a conductive material.

The surface capacitive touchscreen is the most inexpensive design, so it is widely used. It consists of four electrodes placed at each corner of the touchscreen, which maintain a level voltage over the entire conductive layer.

When your finger comes in contact with any part of the screen, current flows between those electrodes and your finger. Sensors positioned under the screen sense the change in voltage and the location of that change.

This is a more advanced touchscreen technique. In a projected capacitive touchscreen transparent electrodes are placed along the protective glass coating and are arranged in a matrix.

One line of electrodes (vertical) maintain a constant level of current. Another line (horizontal) are triggered when your finger touches the screen and initiates current flow in that area of the screen.  The electrostatic field created where the two lines intersect determine where it was touched.

The module we will be experimenting with today is a very common Arduino Shield, which is rebranded by many manufacturers. You can easily find these on Amazon, eBay or at your local electronics shop.

You can also just use the shield as an LCD display and ignore the two other components, however, if you intend on doing that it would be cheaper just to buy an LCD display without any touchscreen features.

This is a TFT orThin Film Transistordevice that uses liquid crystals to produce a display.  These displays can produce a large number of colors with a pretty decent resolution.

You do need to be looking directly at the display for best color accuracy, as most of these inexpensive LCD displays suffer from distortion and “parallax error” when viewed from the side. But as the most common application for a device like this is as a User Interface (UI) this shouldn’t be a problem.

This shield uses a 4-wire analog resistive touchscreen, as described earlier.  Two of the wires (one X and one Y) are connected to a couple of the analog inputs on the Arduino. The analog inputs are required as the voltage levels need to be measured to determine the position of the object touching the screen.

The microSD card socket is a convenience, it’s normally used for holding images for the display but it can also be used for program storage.  This can be handy for holding things like calibration settings and favorite selections.

You should note that the microSD card uses the SPI interface and is wired for the Arduino Uno. While the rest of the shield will function with an Arduino Mega 2560, the SPI connections on the Mega are different, so the microSD card will not work.

The last paragraph regarding the microSD card may make you think that an Arduino Uno is the best choice for the Touchscreen Display Shield.  And it you require the microSD card then it probably is a good choice.

But using an Arduino Uno with this shield does have one big disadvantage – a limited number of free I/O pins.  In fact there are only three pins left over once the card has been plugged in:

If your product is self-contained and doesn’t need many (or any) I/O pins then you’ll be fine. But if you need more pins to interface with then an Arduino Mega 2560 is a much better choice. It has a lot of additional analog and digital pins.

So if you don’t require the microSD card, or are willing to hook up a separate microSD card, then the Arduino Mega 2560 is a better choice for most applications.

As there are three devices on the shield you will need libraries for each of the ones you want to use.  TheSD Libraryis already installed in your Arduino IDE, so you will just need libraries for the display and touchscreen.

For the LCD you will have a lot of choices in libraries. Most of these shields come with a CD ROM with some sketches and libraries, so you can use the LCD libraries there. Bear in mind however that code on these CD ROMs tends to be a little dated, you may have better lick on the vendors website.

This useful resource contains code, libraries and datasheets for a wealth of LCD displays, both touchscreen and non-touchscreen. You’ll also find code for some common OLED displays as well.

I ran my touchscreen through all of the code samples I obtained from the LCD Wiki. It’s an interesting exercise, and by examining the sketch for each demo you can learn a lot about programming the display.

The first example is a very simple color “sweep” test. Navigate to theExample_01_Simple_testfolder and open the folder for your Arduino controller.  Navigate down until you find the “ino” file and load it.

This test does not make use of any of the extra libraries, it drives the LCD directly. It is only a test of the LCD display, it does not make use of the touchscreen membrane.

You’ll find this example in theExample_02_clear_screenfolder, the sameclear_Screen.inoexample is used for both the Uno and Mega so there are no separate folders.

This example does use the custom libraries, and is a very good way to learn how to use them.  You’ll note that theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary is loaded, which is the graphics library for the LCD display.

Another library, LCDWIKI_KBV.h, is loaded as well. This is a hardware-specific “helper” library that provides an interface to the actual hardware for the other libraries.

When you run this example the results will be similar to the first one, a series of colors will sweep across the screen. In this case the colors are different, and they vary in speed.

A look at the loop will show how this is done. TheLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary has a “Fill_Screen” method that fills the screen with an RGB color. You can specify the color in both hexadecimal or decimal format, the example illustrates both ways.

The example itself is in a folder labeled “Example_03_colligate_test” and the code itself is in the colligate_test.ino file. I suspect a translation error resulted in the name!

This sketch uses a number of functions from theLCDWIKI_GUI.hlibrary, along with some custom functions to draw geometric shapes. It then displays a cycle of graphs, shapes, and patterns on the LCD display.

One way in which this sketch differs is that most of the graphics routines are executed in the Setup function, so they only run once. The loop then displays some text with a selection of colors and fonts. The orientation is changed as it cycles through the loop.

This example makes use of a second file that contains fonts. The Display Scroll sketch illustrates a number of different methods of scrolling characters, in different fonts, colors and even languages.

One interesting thing about this test is that it illustrates how to display text in different “aspects”, Portrait and Landscape, Right side up and Reversed.

Unlike the previous examples that put the text in with a number of graphics, this example is a pretty simple one with just a block of text in different sizes and colors.  This makes it very simple to understand how the text is positioned on the display.

The result of running the sketch is the display screen fills with rows of hexadecimal values while the background alternates between blue and black and the orientation (or “aspect”) changes.  If you stand back to see the “big picture” you’ll note that the color values form “number patterns”.

The Display Phone Call sketch draws a mockup telephone keypad. Pressing one of the keys will display the result on a line of text at the top.  There is also a key to delete your entries, as well as ones to send and disconnect the call – the latter two are “dummy” functions of course as it’s only a demo.

In addition to the graphics and “helper” libraries that have been used in the previous examples this sketch also uses theTouchScreenlibrary to read screen interaction.  This was one of the libraries included in the original ZIP file.

As its name would imply, this sketch displays a bitmap image on the display. The images need to be placed onto the root of a microSD card, which in turn is plugged into the socket on the display shield.

Note that this demo will only work on the Arduino Uno, as the microSD card uses the SPI bus and is wired to the Arduino Uno SPI port. The Arduino Mega 2560 board uses different pins for SPI.

The image needs to be in bitmap format as this format defines several bytes for each individual pixel in the image. There are four 320×480 sample images included in the code sample, you can also use your own if you (a) keep them the same size and (b) give them the same names.

The images will show off the display resolution, which is reasonably impressive. You’ll also note that to see them at their best, you need to be directly in front of the display, viewing the display at an angle causes the display to distort colors.

Another thing you will notice is the speed at which the images draw, which is not particularly impressive. The clock speed of the Arduino has a lot to do with this, as does the method used to extract each individual pixel from the image.

This example draws some small “switches” on the display. The switches are active and respond to touch.  There are slide switches, a push button, some radio buttons and some text-based expandable menus to test with.

The Touch Pen example is actually a pretty decent little drawing application. You can draw whatever you want on the main screen area. A set of buttons allow you to set the stylus color and pen width.

While the sample code is a bit difficult to follow it’s worth the effort, as it shows you how to create a dynamic menu system. Touching the stylus color button, for example, will open a new menu to select colors.  This is a handy technique that you’ll need to know when developing your own user interfaces.

The Calibration utility lets you calibrate the resistive touchscreen.  It achieves this by placing a number of crosses on the screen. You can calibrate the screen by using the stylus to touch the center of one of the crosses as accurately as you can.

After you touch one of the cross points the sketch runs through a calibration sequence, during which time you need to continue to touch the cross point. You’ll be informed when it is finished.

After calibration, the sketch will display a number of calibration values for the resistive touchscreen. These values can be used in your future sketches to make the touchscreen more accurate.

For the best accuracy, you should repeat the test several times using different cross points, noting the results each time. You can then average those results and use the values in your sketches.

The examples are a great way to demonstrate the capabilities of your touchscreen. But to really put your interface to work you’ll need to write your own interface code.

Writing a touchscreen interface can be challenging. I would suggest that you start by modifying one of the example codes, one that is closest to your desired interface.

For my experiment, I will be using an Arduino Mega 2560 to drive three LEDs. I used a Red, Green and Blue LED but really any colors will work – I just wanted my LED colors to match my button colors.

The digital I/O connector at the back of the Mega is still accessible even when the touchscreen display shield is installed, so I used three of those connections for the LEDs. I hooked up each LED anode through a 220-ohm dropping resistor and connected them as follows:

Of course you can use other pins, just remember to change the sketch to match.  The pins I selected happen to all be PWM-capable, but in this simple interface I’m not dimming the LEDs.

The sketch is based upon the telephone keypad sketch. I modified it to eliminate the other functions and just display three buttons.  Then I added code to toggle the LEDs.

TheAdafruit GFX Libraryis a comprehensive graphics library that can be used in a variety of display applications.  It is a “core library”, meaning that it is called by other Adafruit libraries.

TheAdafruit TFTLCD Libraryis used. It uses the previous library to provide an easy method of drawing on the LCD display.  It works with LCD displays that use dri