RGBMatrixEmulator is a Python package for emulating RGB LED matrices that are normally driven by the rpi-rgb-led-matrix library. Most commonly, these are used with single-board computers such as the Raspberry Pi.
RGBMatrixEmulator (currently) supports a subset of the function calls present in the Python bindings for rpi-rgb-led-matrix. As such, it's accuracy is not 100% guaranteed.
RGBMatrixEmulator is in the Python Package Index (PyPI).
Installing with pip is recommended for all systems.
pip install RGBMatrixEmulatorProjects that are able to be emulated will rely on importing classes from rpi-rgb-led-matrix. These will need to be replaced by equivalent RGBMatrixEmulator classes.
For example, usage on a Rasberry Pi might look like this:
from rgbmatrix import RGBMatrix, RGBMatrixOptionsThe emulated version will need to use RGBMatrixEmulator classes:
from RGBMatrixEmulator import RGBMatrix, RGBMatrixOptionsAfter this, most of the existing command line arguments from the rpi-rgb-led-matrix library still apply. You should reference the project README for that library when necessary.
Startup of the existing script will be unchanged.
The first time you run a script with the emulator enabled, a file called emulator_config.json will be created in the script's directory. This enables configurations to be customized on a per-script basis. If you would like to regenerate the default configuration, you can delete the file and a new one will be created the next time the emulator starts.
The default configuration is as follows:
{
"pixel_outline": 0,
"pixel_size": 16,
"pixel_style": "square",
"pixel_glow": 6,
"display_adapter": "browser",
"icon_path": null,
"emulator_title": null,
"suppress_font_warnings": false,
"suppress_adapter_load_errors": false,
"browser": {
"_comment": "For use with the browser adapter only.",
"port": 8888,
"target_fps": 24,
"fps_display": false,
"quality": 70,
"image_border": true,
"debug_text": false,
"image_format": "JPEG"
},
"log_level": "info"
}pixel_outline (Integer): Size of the black border around each pixel. Only works on some adapters; others will ignore this configuration.
pixel_size (Integer): Size of the emulated LED. Helpful for emulating large matrices on small screens. Actual window size is the matrix size scaled by pixel size.
pixel_style (String): Style of the emulated LED. Supported pixel styles are "square", "circle", and "real". Some display adapters do not support all options and will revert to a supported style.
pixel_glow (Integer): Amount of glow to add to pixels. Currently only supported by "real" pixel style. Must be an integer >= 0.
display_adapter (String): Display adapter for the emulator. See Display Adapters section for details.
icon_path (Path): Relative path to a custom icon file (PNG, ICO, JPG/JPEG, etc.). If not set, the emulator window uses the default RGBME icon.
emulator_title (String): Custom title to display at the top of the emulator window. If not set, RGBME uses default debug text.
suppress_font_warnings (Boolean): Suppress BDF font parsing errors, such as for missing characters.
browser (Dict): Additional configuration options for the "browser" display adapter. Does nothing for other adapters.
port (Integer): Port for the rendering server to attach to. Example: http://localhost:8888
target_fps (Integer): Target frames per second. Higher values may lead to lower performance.
fps_display (Bool): Display the FPS.
quality (Intger): Value from 0 - 100 indicating the quality percentage for the rendered image. Higher values may lead to lower performance.
image_border (Bool): Display a slight border around the rendered image.
debug_text (Bool): Display debug text.
Altering the pixel_size configuration will change how large the LEDs appear on your screen. This is helpful for emulating large matrices or on small screens.
You can also change the pixel_style option. By default, the emulator represents LEDs as squares. If you prefer the LEDs to have a more rounded appearance, you can change to circle. For simulating a real panel with LED "glow", the real style can be used.
By default, RGBMatrixEmulator uses browser as its display adapter for maximum compatibility with different operating systems as well as thread-safety. However, you can also use other display adapters as well if the default adapter does not suit your needs.
Currently supported display adapters are:
browser(default)pygameterminaltkinterturtlesixelraw
You can swap display adapters by changing the display_adapter value to one of the above in emulator_config.json.
Note: Not all display adapters support all emulator features. Some adapters may require additional setup steps to install. For example, on OSX, it may be necessary to install tkinter via Homebrew (brew install python-tk).
Please see the README for the browser display adapter for further information regarding its configuration and usage.
If you prefer fine-grained control over the raw pixel data, such as to build integration testing or build your own UI on top of it, you can use the raw display adapter.
Please see the README for the raw display adapter for further information regarding its configuration and usage.
The emulator config allows you to customize icons and window text in simple one-off scripts. However, this needs to be done manually for each user since RGBME generates a new emulator config on first bootup. If you are packaging RGBME as a part of a larger project, you may wish to automatically configure the branding options for end users (i.e. add "white-label" customization).
To do so, you can directly write to the icon_path and emulator_text options:
from RGBMatrixEmulator import RGBMatrixOptions
options = RGBMatrixOptions() # Fill out the options struct with user args
# Set the title
options.emulator_title = "White Label LED Matrix"
# Pass the icon path as string
options.icon_path = "path/to/your/icon.png"
# A better option is to use relative paths:
from pathlib import Path
options.icon_path = (Path(__file__).parent / "path" / "to" / "your" / "icon.png").resolve()
See Samples README for more information about running example scripts.
- Calling draw functions on an instance of
RGBMatrixis slow (i.e.matrix.SetPixel,matrix.Fill)-
Prefer using on a
Canvasinstance instead -
rpi-rgb-led-matrixuses a threaded implementation to handle single pixel draws with theRGBMatrixclass, unfortunatelyRGBMatrixEmulatorredraws the entire screen on each call -
NOTE: the implementation is accurate other than speed (you can still drop
RGBMatrixEmulatorinto a project that makes calls to the matrix object) -
Expand Example
# SLOW matrix = RGBMatrix(options = RGBMatrixOptions) for y in matrix.height: for x in matrix.width: matrix.SetPixel(x, y, 255, 255, 255) # Redraws entire screen # FAST matrix = RGBMatrix(options = RGBMatrixOptions) canvas = matrix.CreateFrameCanvas() for y in matrix.height: for x in matrix.width: canvas.SetPixel(x, y, 255, 255, 255) # No redraw matrix.SwapOnVsync(canvas) # Force screen refresh
-
- Drawing large strings is slow, partly because of the
linelimitparameter in the BDF font parser this emulator uses to prevent multiline text from being rendered unintentionally.
Before submitting a PR, please open an issue to help us track development. All development should be based off of the main branch and PRs should be squash merged. Releases are cut periodically and follow semantic versioning.
Pull requests that fail builds will not be merged.
RGBME uses hatch to manage dependencies. To enter a hatch shell:
hatch shell dev
# Example:
# To run a sample script:
(rgbmatrixemulator) cd samples
(rgbmatrixemulator) python runtext.pyNote
hatch has an issue dealing with keyboard interrupts (such as CTRL + C), which is heavily used to stop emulated scripts.
See pypa/hatch#1633 and pypa/hatch#1647
Until this is resolved, you may want to install RGBME directly instead:
pip install -e .[dev]hatch run test:runhatch run test:lintTy Porter