roadsign

Code for the MakeHaven roadsign control project. Code inside the portal/ folder is for the front end. The image conversion and sign update procedure will follow the method laid out in Image Upload.ipynb. It works more or less like this:

1. A user uploads an image or enters text in the front end site.
2. The server runs a Python program to create a black-and-white version of the image or render the text as an image.
3. The Python code stores the created image as a vector of 1's and 0's defined in a C header file buf.h.
4. The Python code then calls the Particle API to compile and update the Arduino source code of the Particle Electron controlling the sign. The source code it sends is a simple "boilerplate" code like base.ino or scroll.ino. The image to display is "smuggled in" by having the code #include the buf.h file.
5. The Arduino code handles the wacky bit shift conventions necessary to properly address the sign itself, meaning the Python code can export the image in a normal, left-to-right, top-to-bottom order.

Currently, the code is somewhat opaque and not well documented. My first goal in this fork is to improve that somewhat. Next I'm planning to try to write a program to process text inputs.

2017-06-07 status:

I've gotten the text rendering more or less working. It's all in the Text Upload.ipynb file. Obviously, a final implementation is going to need to take the code in there and put it into python scripts for the server to execute, but that's OK...