libvlla

Shared library for controlling the Very Large LED Array (videos of it here). Pumps pixel data out over two serial ports to Teensy boards which then shift the data out to the custom LED boards.

Some friends made the VLLA and then later I connected it to a Raspberry Pi and wrote various pieces of software (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7) to create effects on it.

I worked on it in 2014 while I was in school.

Compilation

Just run make.

Installation

1. Put it somewhere that the system can find it, like /usr/lib.
2. Run sudo ldconfig to configure the dynamic linker run-time bindings.

API

Look at vlla.h. An example usage:

int width = 60;
int x = 4;
int y = 3;

VLLA* vlla = vlla_init("/dev/ttyACM0", "/dev/ttyACM1"); // connect to the display hardware
vlla->pixels[y*width+x] = 0xFFFFFF; // __RRGGBB format
vlla_update(vlla); // send pixel data to the display
vlla_close(vlla); // dispose of resources like the serial ports