CADDeck

This is the source repository for the software for CADDeck, a combined joystick and touch panel display suitable for use with common CAD programs.

Hardware Configuration

Current "AFUDirk" hardware

It is configured to use the hardware designed by AFUDirk here (https://github.com/AFUDIrk/CADDeck) It includes:

1. Two axis joystick (e.g. for X, Y pan)
2. Two axis knob (up/down and rotate left/right) with a capacitive switch for mode select
3. Ten switches around the base (e.g. measure, ESC...)
4. LCD touch panel with up to 10 screens of 12 buttons

All H/W buttons as well as the touch panel buttons are programmable through a web page.

Basic principles of operation and software build still apply, and are described below, but details may differ so some updates to the text are needed.

Version 1 (deprecated)

Initial versions of the software were built for this hardware that has a knob with four buttons and a thumbwheel encoder. No work is currently being done on this version of the hardware, but details can be found in the branch Version_1-Four_Buttons.

PC Interface

It connects to the PC via Bluetooth using the HID interface (i.e. it looks like a keyboard and mouse to the PC). A USB-C port is provided for power and to download code. Location of the USB-C port on the left side is not ideal, but that is where it is on the screen being used. It should be possble to run power to the unit and hardwire it to the screen rather than using the USB-C for power but I have not tried this.

SpaceMouse Emulation

While the basic mode uses mouse/keyboard combinations for viewpoint control, a SpaceMouse emulation mode is also available. This requires an external Raspberry Pi Pico board running this software (https://github.com/andrewfernie/magellan-spacemouse), as a fork from the project of the same name by "jfedor2". This board is connected to a serial port on the CADDeck WT32-SC01 board, and is also connected to the PC via USB. Further work is required to avoid the need for simultaneous use of Bluetooth and USB interfaces.

Touch Panel

The touch panel is adapted from Dustin Watt's FreeTouchDeck project (https://github.com/DustinWatts/FreeTouchDeck.git) which I modified to increase the button count, etc. (https://github.com/andrewfernie/FreeTouchDeckWT32.git). For this project I added support for the joystick, encoder, and buttons. The easiest way to get it going is to use a WT32-SC01 board (http://www.wireless-tag.com/portfolio/wt32-sc01/). Purchase the basic board, not the "Plus" version as the Plus uses a parallel interface to the LCD panel and doesn't leave enough IO lines free for the joystick and buttons, etc. The board includes an ESP32 module, and a 3.5" LCD with capacitive touchscreen.

S/W Build Notes:

1. The build uses the PlatformIO IDE for VSCode. Install VSCode, then the PlatformIO plugin and you should be good to go.

2. You need to make sure that the appropriate pins are defined for your hardware configuration. I built mine for the WT32-SC01 and have built the code for a handwired ESP32 module + resistive touchscreen.

3. You may see build messages like

    In file included from include/CADDeck.h:14,
             from include/SaveConfig.h:3,
             from src/SaveConfig.cpp:1:
    .pio/libdeps/esp-wrover-kit/TFT_eSPI/TFT_eSPI.h:909:8: warning: #warning >>>>------>> TOUCH_CS pin not defined, TFT_eSPI touch functions will not be available! [-Wcpp]
    #warning >>>>------>> TOUCH_CS pin not defined, TFT_eSPI touch functions will not be available!`
   

   You can get rid of these by defining TOUCH_CS in platformio.ini to any unused pin that is a valid output pin. The alternative is to not define TOUCH_CS (delete the line, or put a semi-colon in front of it) and just ignore the messages.

    #define TOUCH_CS=33
   

4. The system tries to display the logo in "CADDeck_logo.bmp" at startup. If you don't want anything displayed make sure that the file doesn't exist. In this case you will see a message like the following on the serial port. As long as you didn't weant anything displayed at startup ignore the message.

    [  1159][E][vfs_api.cpp:104] open(): /littlefs/logos/CADDeck_logo.bmp does not exist, no permits for creation
   

5. You may see some error messages like

    [vfs_api.cpp:104] open(): /littlefs/list does not exist 
   

   This is a known issue with ESPAsyncWebsServer related to LittleFS supporting folders while SPIFFS does not. See https://github.com/lorol/

6. Having trouble? There are some debug messages that can be enabled in FreeTouchDeck.h

    #define LOG_MSG_BASIC 1
    #define LOG_MSG_LEVEL 1  // 1=ERROR, 2=ERROR+WARN, 3=ERROR+WARN+INFO
    #define LOG_MSG_DEBUG 0
    #define LOG_MSG_TOUCH_DEBUG 0  // messages to console each time a touch is detected
   

   Try setting LOG_MSG_LEVEL to 3 and you will get quite a few more status messages

Setup

Once the unit is assembled and the display is coming up you should see the main page.

Go to the CAD Settings page.

Then the Switch Monitor page.

It displays the status of the joystick, encoder, and buttons. You should be able to see the result of each joystick movement or button selection. Note that the values are shown as 1 when not selected and 0 when selected (pushed).

The joystick X and Y data may be bouncing around a bit. This is normal as the joystick is not calibrated at this point. To calibrate the joystick:

1. Go back to the CAD Settings page
2. Press the Joystick Zero button when the joystick is centered and still. This sets the zero point for the joystick.
3. Press the Joystick Scale button and move the joystick around to the extremes in X and Y. You have 5s. Once the function finishes the calibration parameters will be calculated and the joystick should show a range of roughly +/- 1 in both X and Y.
4. If you are happy with the calibration, press the Save CAD Configuration button and the parameters will be saved to the cadparams.json file in the ESP32. This file can be downloaded from the ESP32 to your PC via the CAD Settings page in the configurator. It is a good idea to do this and to copy the file to the data\config folder in the CADDeck code so that you won't lose the parameters next time you upload the data folder to the ESP32.
5. If you are not happy with the results, try again.

Bind your computer to the CADDeck using the Bluetooth setings page on your computer.

Configuration

Note that all of the pages shown or mentioned above are samples. Every page can be reorganized and customized to suit your needs via the configurator.

WiFi Configuration

The configurator is accessed via a web browser on a computer or tablet connected to the same network as the ESP32. To enable the configurator go to the settings page on the touch panel and select the WiFi Enable button.

If you have already configured your wifi connection in wificonfig.json you should see a message saying that it has connected to the wifi and will display the IP address. At that point you can go to your browser and enter the IP address top connect. The configurator will be displayed.

If you have not already configured the wifi you should see a message saying that an access point (AP) has been created with a network name and IP address. You will need to connect your computer to the network provided, and then point your browser at the IP address. Once the configurator screen is displayed in your browser go to the wifi page and enter your network SSID and password. Then select "Save WiFi Config" to save the settings.

Menu Configuration

The main change from the original FreeTouchDeck is to allow more buttons per page - the screen area is just a bit smaller than the size of twelve StreamDeck buttons which seems reasonable. The code is currently set to three rows of four buttons, but can be changed to three rows of five buttons (or two rows of four, etc.) by modifying CADDeck.h: "#define BUTTON_ROWS 3" and "#define BUTTON_COLS 5". In principle it should support larger arrays, but not tested, and the configurator page is set to a maximum of 3x5.

The configurator displays an array of three rows of five buttons, with a drop down list to select the menu page to be modified. If you are using fewer than 3x5, simply ignore the extra rows and columns. On the to-do list is to generate the HTML dynamically to correspond with the number of rows and columns.

Each Menu page has a 2D array of programmable buttons, and each button has an array of 3 actions that can be defined for when the button is pressed.

You can set different background colors for a button that performs an action (black background in the image above), or links to another menu (light blue in the image.) This is controlled on the Settings page of the configurator.

If you don't want to use all buttons use the configurator to set the logo to "blank.bmp" and make sure that there are no actions defined for that button. Any button with those characteristics will not be drawn.

One limitation is the size of the FLASH used for the configuration files and icons displayed on the touch screen. The icons are 75x75 24-bit color BMP files, each one taking about 17kB. If you run out of space your only option is to check to see if any are unused and delete them.

Hardware Buttons

Configuration of the hardware buttons is via a dedicated page within the same web-based configurator as for the LCD panel.

The top section includes:

1. Current CAD program: This is the program whose settings will be loaded when the CADDeck is restarted
2. X and Y scaling parameters for the joystick. These can be set manually, but a function is provided to capture data as the joystick is moved to its extremes and calculate the scalings for you. The output scaling is +/-1
3. Joystick deadzone. Any X or Y value with an absolute value below this number is set to zero.
4. Joystick sensitivity. Joystick values are multiplied by this as they are converted to mouse movement commands
5. Thumbwheel sensitivity. The encoder value is multiplied by this as it is converted to mouse movement commands

Below that is the button action definition. The same approach to defining the actions is used as for the LCD panel buttons. The actions are:

1. Selected CAD program. The program whose settings are being modifed in that part of the configurator. Separate definitions of these settings are kept for each of the five CAD programs available.
2. Selected Button. One of the nine buttons shown in the image to the left. Click one of the indicated areas in the image then modify the actions for that button as needed.
3. The actions that must be taken to enable pan/rotate/zoom to be controlled by the joystick (i.e. the mouse) within the selected CAD program. Note that the definition of what is needed to control pan/rotate/zoom is separate from which button enables that mode. As an example, Solidworks needs the middle mouse button to be held down to rotate the view. So, JoystickRotate/Action1 is set to "Mouse Buttons" and Value1 is set to "Press Middle Button". To assign the Rotate function to button 8, click "8" in the image to the left, then set SelectedButton/Action1 to "CAD Functions" and Value1 to "Joystick Rotate" At the very bottom is the "Save CAD Config" button. When selected the settings for all CAD programs are saved on the ESP32 in file cadparams.json