nuttx/Documentation/components/drivers/special/framebuffer.rst
2022-10-10 09:29:53 +08:00

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====================
Frame Buffer Drivers
====================
A framebuffer is a memory-mapped buffer that represents all the pixels necessary to drive a video display.
The Frame Buffer driver is intended to be used in the following scenarios:
#. Whenever it is necessary to hold all the pixels that would be used to drive a video display. This includes:
#. Graphics libraries that directly access the underlying framebuffer;
#. Advanced UIs (e.g. alpha blending) that need to read back the image data;
#. Applications that expect the framebuffer to exist;
Binding
========
LCD and frame buffer drivers usually are not directly accessed by user code, but are usually bound to another, higher-level device driver.
In general, the binding sequence is:
#. Get an instance of ``struct fb_vtable_s`` from the hardware-specific frame buffer device driver, and
#. Provide that instance to the initialization method of the higher-level device driver.
.. _genericlcdfb:
Generic LCD Frame Buffer
------------------------
This example will walk through the path from userspace to hardware-specific details on how an LCD screen is bound to a framebuffer.
#. ``include/nuttx/video/fb.h`` provides all structures and APIs needed to work with frame buffer drivers:
#. ``drivers/video/fb.c`` is the higher-level device driver. An instance of ``struct fb_vtable_s`` will be provided to it;
#. ``fb_register`` registers the framebuffer character device at ``/dev/fbN`` where N is the display number;
#. It also provides the prototype of ``up_fbinitialize``, which may be defined by:
#. An specific device into ``arch/<arch>/src/<chip>`` directory;
#. By the LCD framebuffer adapter in ``drivers/lcd/lcd_framebuffer.c``, which provides an intermediary interface between the Frame Buffer Driver and the LCD screen drivers;
#. Let's consider we are using the LCD framebuffer (``CONFIG_LCD_FRAMEBUFFER = y``):
#. This interface implements the ``up_fbinitialize`` which:
#. Provides the instance of ``struct fb_vtable_s`` (a member of ``struct lcdfb_dev_s``);
#. Calls ``board_lcd_initialize`` and ``board_lcd_getdev`` LCD-specific functions. These functions are defined in ``boards/<arch>/<chip>/<board>/src`` and prototyped in ``include/nuttx/board.h``;
#. Finally, the LCD screen drivers are usually available at ``drivers/lcd/`` and implement the callbacks defined at ``include/nuttx/lcd/lcd.h``:
#. ``include/nuttx/lcd/lcd.h`` provides structures and APIs needed to work with LCD screens, whereas using the framebuffer adapter or the :doc:`lcd`;
Examples
========
Examples apply to specific cases of the :ref:`genericlcdfb`:
.. _ttgotdisplayesp32:
TTGO T-Display ESP32 board
---------------------------
This board contains an ST7789 TFT Display (135x240).
By selecting the ``ttgo_t_display_esp32:lvgl_fb`` config, the ``lvgldemo`` example will be built with the framebuffer interface.
* ``boards/xtensa/esp32/ttgo_t_display_esp32/src/esp32_bringup.c`` registers the framebuffer driver:
.. code-block:: c
#ifdef CONFIG_VIDEO_FB
ret = fb_register(0, 0);
if (ret < 0)
{
syslog(LOG_ERR, "ERROR: Failed to initialize Frame Buffer Driver.\n");
}
#endif
* ``up_fbinitialize`` from the frame buffer adapter will then be called as ``CONFIG_LCD_FRAMEBUFFER = y``:
* ``board_lcd_initialize`` and ``board_lcd_getdev`` are defined at ``boards/xtensa/esp32/common/src/esp32_st7789.c``:
* ``board_lcd_initialize`` initializes the LCD hardware on the board by defining the SPI interface which is connected to the display controller;
* ``board_lcd_getdev`` calls the ``st7789_lcdinitialize`` and returns a reference to the LCD object for the specified LCD;
* ``st7789_lcdinitialize`` is part of the LCD screen driver at ``drivers/lcd/st7789.c``;
* The LVGL demo application (``lvgldemo``) makes use of the ``ioctl`` system call to trigger a ``FBIO_UPDATE`` request to the higher-level device driver to refresh the LCD screen with framebuffer data:
.. code-block:: c
ioctl(state.fd, FBIO_UPDATE, (unsigned long)((uintptr_t)&fb_area));
NuttX Simulator
----------------
:doc:`NuttX Simulator </platforms/sim/sim/index>` provides a X11-based framebuffer driver to simulate the framebuffer usage into a X11-compatible host.
By selecting the ``sim:lvgl_fb`` config, the ``lvgldemo`` example will be built with the framebuffer driver.
* ``boards/sim/sim/sim/src/sim_bringup.c`` registers the framebuffer driver the same way :ref:`ttgotdisplayesp32`;
* ``arch/sim/src/sim/up_framebuffer.c`` and ``arch/sim/src/sim/up_x11framebuffer.c`` will be built as ``CONFIG_SIM_FRAMEBUFFER = y`` and ``CONFIG_SIM_X11FB = y`` are set, respectively;
* ``up_framebuffer.c`` provides ``up_fbinitialize`` and,
* calls ``up_x11initialize`` from ``up_x11framebuffer.c`` that initializes a X11-based window as a framebuffer. This is the underlying "driver".
* The LVGL demo application (``lvgldemo``) makes use of the ``ioctl`` system call to trigger a ``FBIO_UPDATE`` request to the higher-level device driver in order to refresh the LCD screen with framebuffer data as usual;
.. warning::
One must consider that framebuffer requires that the entire display's pixels to be represented.
Considering a 320x480 @RGB565 LCD screen, that would be 300KiB, which it'd be too much for a memory-constrained device.
However, when memory is not a constraint, framebuffer may offer applications a faster way to update display contents once writing to the RAM-mapped buffer is faster than doing multiple SPI transfers.
For memory-constrained devices, consider using :doc:`lcd`.