Digital photo reader windows#

Image dimensions:My photo frame image collection contains pictures with different dimensions and different positions (portrait, landscape). Names longer than 8 characters become shorthanded with the ~ sign. The file system on the SD cards works with eight-character filenames that reminisces good old DOS times long ago, when short file names were the norm.

Digital photo reader windows#

The 24-bit color depth (R8G8B8), designated in Windows as ‘True Color’ is the only format accepted by the Arduino. BMP is an uncompressed format that exists in several color depths: 2, 4, 8, 16, 24 and 32 bit. Images: The only format recognized by Arduino is Microsoft’s BMP format. Displays with an ILI9341, ILI9481, or ILI 9486 controller are fully supported by the MCUFRIEND_kbv.h library. Four pins (marked ‘SD_xx’) support the SD card reader while the remaining pins provide power and serve (marked LCD_xx) the parallel interface of the display. left: the back of the 3.5’ TFT shield of figure 1 – all pins visible. The voltage requirements for a card reader integrated in a TFT shield is taken care of by the voltage regulator and level shifters of the shield, so don’t worry.įigure 2. SD card technology works with 3.3V control logic while an Arduino UNO works with 5V control logic. Note that cards need to be formatted in FAT32 and that it is most handy to have all images stored in the root directory. The micro SD card used here has a capacity of 8 GB. At the same time ‘low-capacity’ SD cards are increasingly hard to get. Current SD card slots are in the micro format while the market is flooded with micro-SD cards with enormous capacities. Some years ago all TFT displays on the market came equipped with a standard SD card slot, accepting cards with capacities in the MB range. SD card:The world of SD cards is rapidly changing. The MCUFRIEND_kbv.h library supports all these controllers. My favorite photo frame display is a 3.5’ 320*480 display shield with ILI9481 controller. This range of displays suits the purpose of creating a photo frame. Display controllers are ILI9341, ILI9481, ILI9486 and ILI9488. Shields:The market supplies a range of shields between 2.4’ and 3.95’ display diagonal and with resolutions of 320*240 and 320*480. basically: just stick the shield onto the UNO, stick a micro SD card with picture files in the card reader slot, load the sketch and go! Left: 3.5’ 320*480 pixel parallel TFT shield, front – a micro SD card sticks out of the SD card slot. Let’s go through this procedure.įigure 1. The idea of a shield is very simple and very clever: Just stick the device properly onto an Arduino UNO, insert the SD card loaded with pictures, upload a sketch and you’re in business. The compact way: TFT shield mounted directly on top of an Arduino Uno We use the same TFT display as in the ‘compact’ optionġ. Assembly: parallel TFT display, SD card reader and Arduino Nano library: MCUFRIEND_kbv.h (created by David Prentice).Ģ.TFT shield with on-board SD card reader,.Compact: TFT shield mounted directly on top of an Arduino Uno The result is that a digital photo frame can be created fast and with very modest means.ġ. The Arduino serves in a photo frame assembly as an engine that reads image files stored on SD card pixel for pixel and transfers them fast and in a proper way to the display. Some form of external data storage is always necessary with the original Arduinos because the internal memory of these microcontrollers is far too small to hold color image frames. We have tested a selection of TFT displays. The Arduino Uno or its little brother Nano can also be used in combination with with a separate SD card reader and a TFT display, for instance in situations where it is difficult if not impossible to reach the shields SD card reader. Most simple is to mount a TFT shield onto an Arduino Uno and, with the proper sketch, display images. The assemblies described here are capable of showing sequences of pictures stored on SD card. The library MCUFRIEND_kbv.h (David Prentice) is required.Ī TFT display offers in width, height, pixels and color depth an attractive medium to display pictures. Both combinations comfortably support a digital photo frame. Arduino Nano with a separate SD card reader and driving the same (parallel) TFT display. Arduino Uno with mounted on it a TFT display shield, 2. Here we describe the following setups: 1.