Draw Your Bitmap -- Utility Generates Data for LED Bitmaps (SX/B, Pbasic, SASM)

Zoot

For my own purposes, I wrote up a quick .php page that lets you generate ready to cut-and-paste data statements for pixel bitmaps by using a WYSIWYGish series of checkboxes in the shape of an LED/LCD matrix/display.

The utility lets you choose row order (BIT7 on top or bottom) and which compiler you want to generate data statements for.

Some of you may find this a time-saver; also it's really nice if you want to let the non-technical family/friends create pictures for your display projects.

Visit the page here: 1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php



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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Post Edited (Zoot) : 1/14/2008 7:35:23 PM GMT

DigitalDj

Does this work with the RoboBadge? I like it very Innovative!

I wrote a Editor program for some l.e.d. lighting grids I made and it works kinda the same way. I have mine setup so you can click and hold the mouse button down and drag to highlighlight the squares it's a little less time consuming. I am able to do frame by frame animation which is stored in a array that grows as the number of frames increase and then is saved in a .dat file. The .dat file is then able to be played in a player program.

To bad the SX won't do arrays(or at least I don"t think it does)!


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Post Edited (DigitalDj) : 1/13/2008 2:04:06 AM GMT

Zoot

Yes. In fact if you draw a letter "A" and generate data for SX/B you'll get the same kind of data statements in the SX/B version of the badge. If you have the older ASM code, you can generate for that too.

Keep in mind though, that it's not necessarily "plug n play" -- what you do with the generated data is up to you -- just makes it much easier (IMO) to draw pictures and letter forms this way than to turn your head sidways while changing 1s and 0s...

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Zoot

P.S. -- SX/B does arrays (16 elements per array, and you can have a number of arrays, so it's easy to emulate larger arrays with a few bits). See the SX/B help file for details.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

DigitalDj

I edited my post sorry!

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Forrest

That's pretty slick - great job!

Zoot

Thx. After a year of hand-creating I don't know how many bitmaps, I realized there has *got* to be a better way. It was kind of one of those duh moments.

My partner pointed out that the big weakness here is reverse editing -- what if you want to dump your data statements back in and get the drawing up on screen for tweaks... at some point in the next few weeks I'm going to put a reverse-parser in.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Post Edited (Zoot) : 1/13/2008 3:51:24 AM GMT

Zoot

FYI -- I added a feature to the page that lets you paste in data statements (Pbasic, SX/B, ASM) and get BACK your drawing for subsequent editing. See link to the page at the top of this thread.

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When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Zoot

Fixed a bug which would have made commented out data appear when converting from data back to drawing. Fixed trap which set max column width to 256 even if converted data is much longer.

I cut and pasted all of the bitmaps in a single swipe from the RoboBadge SX/B code (it's a full 5x7 ascii set with special characters) and converted to drawing and it converted perfectly. On long drawings of characters with few spaces between characters, it can be hard to see your "chunks" so I'm going to add some way of setting markers (i.e. grid lines) on the drawing to make it easier.

▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro. -- HST

1uffakind.com/robots/povBitMapBuilder.php
1uffakind.com/robots/resistorLadder.php

Oper8r Al

Thanks for the program. It sure made it a lot quicker than doing it on paper and coding it from there.

Al