Our group designed two specific functions and an excel program to aid a user draw graphics for the DMD.
- Display ( — )
- DisplayClean ( — )
- The ForthMatrix Artwork Excel generator
The two FORTH Words functions in essence create a DMD simulator having two viewing styles. The first style is called when display in the command prompt window and will return the display as shown below. This simulated display shows a binary representation of the two possible state of the LEDs. A 1 indicates the LED is in an illuminated state where as a 0 indicates the LED is turned OFF. The extra bytes around the perimeter of the display are still there to aid the graphic designer with animation. The frame can be pre-loaded anytime using the XY Forth. 0 i XY LoadFrame will load the frame to the outer left frame and 5 i XY LoadFrame will load the frame to the outer right frame.
Display bit map
The Second style is called using the FORTH Word displayClean and will return the display as shown below. This simulated display shows a cleaner, more visual representation of the two possible state of the LEDs. A # indicates the LED is in an illuminated state where as if there is nothing indicates the LED is turned OFF. The extra bytes around the perimeter of the display are still there to aid the graphic designer with animation. The frame can be pre-loaded anytime using the XY Forth. And again the 0 i XY LoadFrame will load the frame to the outer left frame and 5 i XY LoadFrame will load the frame to the outer right frame.
DisplayClean
The simulated display came especially useful when designing the new SPI algorithms and debugging codes. Furthermore the simulated displays allows for different designers to design codes simultaneously.