ELEC 49x Design Project Proposal

A Configurable Marquee Display System

April 11th, 2011

Executive Summary
A configurable Marquee Display system is a real-world application that catches peoples attention and has a variety of entertainment purposes. This display will be built upon the Altera DE2 board, using a keyboard as a communication device between the user and system. Connected through the parallel ports on the board, at least one external hardware device of a Spinning RGB LED Display will be built to attract even more attention. The aim of the display system is to allow the user to be actively involved by controlling dynamic movements of characters and images of various sizes and colours. There will be five main sub systems to be designed and implemented. Each subsystem will be required to reach the first phase as a bare minimum, with the second phase as the ultimate goal. Data structures will used to implement supporting size changes of upper and lower case letters. The software will be programmed in the C language in conjunction with built-in functions from Altera.

Table of Contents
1.0 Introduction ........................................................................................................................................... 4 2.0 Functional Description ......................................................................................................................... 5 2.1 Computer Interface ............................................................................................................................. 5 2.2 Main System........................................................................................................................................ 5 2.4 External Hardware Device................................................................................................................... 6 2.5 Performance Requirements ................................................................................................................ 6 3.0 Design and Production Approach ........................................................................................................... 6 3.1 Background Information ..................................................................................................................... 6 3.2 Design Components ............................................................................................................................ 8 3.2.1 Design of External Hardware ....................................................................................................... 9 3.3 Parts and Implementation ................................................................................................................ 12 3.4 Timeline and Roles ............................................................................................................................ 13 4.0 Testing and Evaluation .......................................................................................................................... 13 4.1 Testing supported characters and images ........................................................................................ 14 4.2 Testing Display type .......................................................................................................................... 14 4.3 Testing UI .......................................................................................................................................... 14 4.4 Testing Input Device.......................................................................................................................... 14 4.5 Testing Spinning LED Display ............................................................................................................ 14 4.5.1 Testing Required for Both Design Plans ..................................................................................... 14 4.5.2 Testing For the First Plan Only ................................................................................................... 15 4.5.3 Testing For the Second Plan Only .............................................................................................. 15 5.0 Resource Requirements ........................................................................................................................ 15 5.1 Additional resources for external hardware ..................................................................................... 15 6.0 Works Cited ........................................................................................................................................... 16
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1.0 Introduction
A configurable marquee display system is to be created using an Altera DE2 board connected to an external VGA display and a spinning LED display. The motivation for creating such a device is to have a cheap and highly portable device that would display images and text in a preconfigured pattern, and attract the attention of passers-by. It is expected to be used when transporting a larger more expensive device such as a laptop or even a desktop computer to simply drive a display is unwanted or impractical. Potential situations where such a device would be useful include a booth at a conference to convey information, at a kiosk to attract attention, or perhaps in a storefront showing products and sales. The minimum goals for the VGA display include being able to display pre-loaded images for a userdefined period of time in a set pattern, with the option to overlay text atop the default images. Scrolling text and interesting transitions between images will be explored. The proposed solution includes using the Altera DE2 Media Computer which uses the Nios II embedded processor, and particularly the included VGA core. Users will set up the desired pattern of pre-loaded images in configuration mode, where they input information through an external PS/2 keyboard connected to the Altera board. By connecting to the parallel ports on the board, an external spinning red-green-blue (RGB) LED display will be designed to attract attention to the whole system. By controlling the timing in the software, the external spinning LED display should display dynamic patterns, programmed texts or a LED sphere. A constructed external device of displaying dynamic patterns would be one of the minimum goals for team to accomplish. The final product available at the end of this project will be a working prototype of the system that could be connected to any VGA compatible device. Future work might explore higher resolution images, adding output sound, having the LED display match up to input music. The device would also likely benefit from an improved UI and input mechanism such as a mouse or touch screen.

2.0 Functional Description

The configurable marquee display system will be made up several components: the main system on an Altera DE2 board, an external display device (monitor, projector, etc), a keyboard interfacing with the DE2 board through the PS2 connection, and an external hardware device consisting of a spinning RGB LED display to attract attention. The Altera DE2 board will also be required to interface with a computer in order to load content into the system. See figure 1 above for a block diagram of the proposed system.

Figure 1 - Block diagram of overall system

2.1 Computer Interface

Interfacing with a computer is essential for the implementation that is expected in this project. There is obviously the need to load code onto the DE2 board when developing, and this is done using a USB cable. Raw image data will be transferred to the device using an RS-232 serial connection because of its relative simplicity. In a commercial version of this device, an SD card would be a convenient means of loading images and if time permits this will be explored.

2.2 Main System

The main system uses as its primary output device an attached external display device with a VGA connection, such as a monitor or projector. It will have two modes: display mode and configuration mode. Display mode will simply display the pattern of images and text that was established in configuration mode. Configuration mode will allow the user to choose a) b) c) d) Which pictures to use (of those currently loaded onto the system), Which order to display them in, How long to display each image, and Create a text overlay for the images

The created pattern will be looped indefinitely on the display, either until the user enters configuration mode again, or powers down the system.

2.3 Keyboard Interface

An external keyboard will be connected to the Altera DE2 board using the PS/2 connection. Its main purpose is navigating the menu and inputting text in configuration mode, and it could potentially be disconnected in display mode. The Escape (ESC) key will be used to enter configuration mode, where various context menus will appear. The user will be able to select a desired menu item. When entering
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text to be displayed, the normal letters, numbers and other characters will be used. When done, the user will navigate the selection to the Done return to display mode option and press enter to select it.

2.4 External Hardware Device

The spinning RBG LED display will interface with the main system using a ribbon cable into the parallel port available on the Altera DE2 board. Two design plans are proposed for the spinning LED display. At least one plan should be implemented as a bare minimum and the other plan should be attempted once the first plan can function properly. Plan one is to design a rotating LED display by one motor. A vertically-oriented LED arm will rotate by sharing the same upright axis with the supporting base. By controlling the flash of the LEDs, dynamic patterns or programmed texts will be displayed. Displaying dynamic patterns is the minimum requirement for the team to accomplish. This design has been motivated by the construction seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLke9GVDN9Y. Plan two is to design a spinning RGB LED display sphere by two motors. The LED sphere will have two motors rotating synchronously with a horizontal axis and a vertical axis respectively. By connecting to the horizontal-axis rotating motor, three LEDs should be rotating and generate a circular pattern in a vertical plane. By adding a vertical-axis rotating motor at the base, the circular pattern would become a spherical pattern which would be considered as a ball. This design has been motivated by the construction seen in http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOPQzrA2OZ8.

2.5 Performance Requirements

The system should be able to display the proper graphics for the time requested in configuration mode. Displaying the images statically requires minimal computer power, though scrolling or moving text will require more though this is not expected to be a problem if only the changed sections of the image are updated. If necessary, the refresh rate could be reduced. The user interface in configuration mode should be very responsive to any keyboard input, responding within the guideline of 0.1 seconds [1]. Boot up time should be minimal. The resolution of the outputted images is limited by the VGA core to 320 x 240 as discussed below, which is acceptable for the scope of this project, though a commercial implementation would need to be higher. The time required to load images onto the system is not a performance concern at this point in time, since a production version would use a different implementation.

3.0 Design and Production Approach

3.1 Background Information
The Altera Media Computer DE2 board will be the main hardware used to control the marquee display. The software used will be Quartus II Web Edition, Nios II Embedded Design Suite, and University Program, all available for free from Altera [2]. An Altera sample program was executed get an initial
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understanding of display capabilities. The program demonstrated bouncing words and rotating coloured lines as display possibilities. The VGA Core will be used to drive signals required by the VGA digital-to-analog converter (DAC) as shown in Figure 2. The VGA Core operates in Pixel Mode, Character Mode, and Character Overlay Mode. These modes produce a screen resolution of up to 640 x 480 pixels, which duplicates in both the x and y direction each pixel from a 320 x 240 image [3]. It was found the DE2 board provides a built-in character font, varying between two set character sizes in character mode. Because of the size limitations of the character buffer in character mode, the pixel buffer will be used to generate the available characters instead. A default size of 5x7 pixels for each character will be used in pixel mode as shown in Figure 3. The created characters will then be stored in memory. The user has the option to enlarge the size in configuration mode by selecting a scale factor.

Figure 2 - VGA interface

Figure 3 - The default character size

Image display will also be done through the pixel mode. The user specifies the x-y coordinates and the colour. The colour is set through 16-bit or 8-bit colour modes, using the standard RGB or a greyscale. Character overlay mode will allow both characters and pixels to be displayed, with the character layer on top of the pixel layer [3].

3.2 Design Components

The 5 main components to be designed are the supported character and image, display types, user interface, input interface, and the external hardware to be connected through the parallel expansion slot. The supported characters and images will need to be designed using the VGA Core. Changing character sizes can be done by using the default size multiplied by a scale factor for x and y pixels as shown in Figure 4. A range of scale factors is changed by the user in configuration mode. Display type includes word/image scrolling, flashing, and other mechanical movements. The user interface (UI) for the marquee display will be designed to allow configuration as shown in Figure 5. The UI can be visually enhanced by replacing the numbers with an arrow beside the highlighted option, scrolling between options using the up/down keys from keyboard. A device driver for the ps/2 keyboard connection is needed for communication between the UI and user. The supported character and image will need to be designed in parallel with the display type first, the UI design will follow to include all of the available features. The hardware and input interface will be designed last to allow the selection of the available features in configuration mode. In addition, it will be required to load pictures into memory on the DE2 board. Further research is required in order to implement this using the RS-232 connection.

Figure 4 - Letter E with scale factor of two

Figure 5 - A sample UI

3.2.1 Design of External Hardware

A constructed Spinning RGB LED Display is proposed to be the external hardware to be connected by the parallel ports. This external hardware system is controlled by the main system to regulate the motor and control the LEDs. The parallel ports provide communications with external devices by capturing data on its input pins and driving data to its output pins. The Altera DE2 Board provides two 40-pin expansion headers, which directly connects to 36 pins on the Cyclone II FPGA [4]. Two design plans are proposed for the hardware devices. At least one of the plans will be successfully implemented. Both of the plans require a vertical axis rotating base. This will be designed and implemented first. The base should consist of a motor driver board with a mounted chip, a motor, a circular wooden board. By matching the pin configuration, a motor control chip will be connected to the parallel port by via a ribbon cable. A larger motor will be installed on the motor driver with a vertical rotating axis. A wooden disk, mounting on top of the motor, will share the same vertical axis to rotate. The apparatus described above would be functioning as a base to support LEDs and its circuitry. 3.2.1.1 First Plan of a Rotating LED Display This Rotating LED Display consists of a LED arm with seven standard LEDs, breadboard, metal beam, balance weight and aforementioned vertical axis rotating base. A LED arm will be constructed by aligning seven LEDs in a column. After an appropriate base has been built, a metal shaft will be mounted on it to support a metal beam. On one side of the beam, the LED arm will be attached. In order to balance the LED arm, a balance weight will be mounted on the other side of the beam. Figure 6 shows the basic structure of the rotating LED display. By controlling the perfect timing of LED on/off states in the software, different patterns and programmed texts will be displayed. Displaying dynamic patterns is the bare minimum to accomplish.

Figure 6 - Front View of Rotating LED Display

3.2.1.2 Second Plan of a Spinning RGB LED Sphere The Spinning LED Display Sphere consists of three powerful RGB LEDs, two motors, two metal shafts and a vertical axis rotating base. After the base has been built, a RGB LED fan will be implemented and mounted on the base. Figure 7 below shows the front view of the vertical-axis rotating base and motor with a LED fan on its top. The three RGB LEDs will be mounted on a wooden circular board 120 degrees apart. A metal shaft, powered by a small motor, will be attached with the base. The small motor will be fit into a supporting frame, which is mounted and standing on the base described above. Figure 8 below shows the side view of the LED fan and the small motor. The software for this external hardware design will control on/off states of each LEDs and to regulate flash frequency.

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Figure 7 - Front view of stationary spinning RGB LED sphere

Figure 8 - Side view of stationary RGB LED sphere (Not Scaled to Size)
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3.3 Parts and Implementation

Hardware parts needed are shown in Table 1. The project is expected to be under the $400 budget limit. The designed components can be test independently, and will therefore be implemented simultaneously. Table 1 Estimated cost of materials. Equipment Altera DE2 Board Monitor Keyboard Two 5V motor Two 12V motor 20 RGB LEDs Ribbon connector L293D Motor Driver (including a chip) 12inch*12inch Wooden Board 10inch long/0.5inch wide metal shaft Connecting wires Breadboard Circuit Board Estimated Cost Free/Sign out Free/inventory Free/inventory $5/unit $7/unit Free/inventory or $5/6 units Free/inventory $13/unit Free/inventory Free/inventory Free/inventory Free/inventory Free/inventory

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3.4 Timeline and Roles

Project Task Group Meeting Parts Ordering Subsystems Design Prototyping/Mockups Build Test Subsystems Redesign Implement Test Systems Integration Poster BluePrint Document Final Document Presentation

Sept

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Mar

April

Open House

Blueprint Submitted

Project Completion System V1.0

Figure 9 - Timeline of events

4.0 Testing and Evaluation

The 5 main components will be tested as standalone subsystems for functionality. Each component must achieve its designed purpose, and then readjusted for maximum efficiency. Once each component is optimized, the character and image will be combined with the display type first. This will solidify the desired outputs available for display. The UI and input system will next be added, allowing user interaction to select the desired display. The external LED display will be added last to complete the working system. It is expected the design will reach a peak in performance due to the technical Altera software limitations. Each of the 5 main components will be implemented in two phases. The first phase of each component is the bare minimum the team aims to accomplish. The second phase will
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improve upon the design if resource permitting. The first phases of each component must be fully functional before consideration of components second phase.

4.1 Testing supported characters and images

After each character and symbol has been implemented using the VGA Core, the byte pattern of each character stored in memory will be tested. The correct sequence of pixel values must be read to ensure there is no distortion. Strings of random symbols will then be displayed at once to verify quality and correctness. The maximum scale factor will be implemented to allow the largest font to be displayed. Pixels must be ensured not to overlap an adjacent letters pixel, and must have at least one pixel spacing in between letters. For images, the colour of each pixel must be highlighted as specified by the user. The first phase will allow capital letters, sample images and numbers to be displayed. The second phase will allow the system alphabet to include more characters such as lower case letters and smoother edges for images.

4.2 Testing Display type

Movements for graphic components must flow as smooth as possible. With a refresh rate of up to 60 frames per second, rotating/scrolling display should appear as a continuous flow. In the case of blinking pixels, frequency will be incrementally adjusted to a maximum threshold. This is done to avoid possible seizure risks. The other health hazard to be aware of is the rotations from the external LED display. The first phase will be primarily on a set horizontal and vertical string scrolling. The second phase will allow a more dynamic movement, such as co-current scrolling and letter bouncing.

4.3 Testing UI
The UI will be tested for its readability, ease of use and aesthetic appeal. The words and images to be displayed on the UI will need to be readjusted to provide sharp display, as well as uniform format switching between menus. The first phase will allow the numbering selection as shown in Figure 5. The second phase will be changed for an arrow selection display with the possibility for wrap-around from top to bottom. A preliminary survey will be conducted with colleagues to gather feedback. The UI will then be readjusted for a second round, after which will be ready for the release version.

4.4 Testing Input Device

This will be a straightforward test for key responsiveness via the keyboard. This requires only the desired key pressed will give a response. This means only the ESC key will allow the user to enter configuration mode. The first phase will allow the user to enter the predefined characters as a string input. The second phase will allow the user to use backspace to correct a mistake and hotkeys to switch between menu options.

4.5 Testing Spinning LED Display

4.5.1 Testing Required for Both Design Plans The first test will be on the LEDs. Once powered, the LEDs should reach a certain amount of brightness with a proper current flowing through. The proper current could be achieved by using a potentiometer.
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The rotation rate of the large motor will also be tested. Since the bigger motor supports heavy loads, it must require higher current to reach an acceptable speed in comparison to the smaller motor. However, the spinning rate of the larger motor should be capped to prevent dislodging of any apparatuses. The final test is for the software. Trials will be run to get the perfect timing for LEDs flash. By timing the on/off states of LEDs- the designed patterns, programmed strings or images should be visually apparent. 4.5.2 Testing For the First Plan Only During rotation, testing should be done to achieve an accurate weight to balance the LED arm on the other side of the metal beam. By adding an appropriate weight on one side, the metal beam should not be titled during the rotation. 4.5.3 Testing For the Second Plan Only A required test should be on the small motor, connected with the small base and LEDs, by measuring its spinning speed. The small motor should work under a required rate to successfully generate a visible circular pattern in the air. To achieve this goal, the motor must receive enough current to rotate above a certain rotation threshold.

5.0 Resource Requirements

There are varied resources required for this project. Firstly, an Altera DE2 board and associated accessories are needed to implement the main system and load the board with programs, and it is expected that this could be borrowed from the Department for use in this course. An external monitor, PS/2 keyboard, and serial cable will also be required, though again it is expected that these items could be borrowed or donated to the project. In terms of software, a computer with all of Quartus II, Nios II Suite and the University Program Suite installed in order to program the board will be required. All this software is already installed on computers in the ILC, or will be by the fall, and is also a free download from the Altera website to install on personal laptops. No special workspace will be required when implementing the main system; a lab bench in ILC 314 should be sufficient. A locker in the ILC might be a good way to store the larger hardware components in one place.

5.1 Additional resources for external hardware

An access to ILC prototyping room (108) is needed as building the hardware device of the spinning LED sphere In building the hardware device of Spinning LEDs Ball, a list of electronic devices needed from inventory, such as LEDs, resistors, wires, breadboard and ribbon connectors. In testing the hardware device of Spinning LEDs Ball, a list of electronic devices will be borrowed, such as voltmeter, soldering tool and glue gun.
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6.0 Works Cited

[1]. Shneiderman, Ben and Plaisant, Catherine. Designing the User Interface: Strategies for Effective Human-Computer Interaction 5th Edition. Boston : Addison Wesley, 2010. ISBN-13: 978-0-321-53735-5. [2]. Altera Corporation. Download Center. Altera. [Online] 2011. [Cited: April 2, 2011.] https://www.altera.com/download/dnl-index.jsp. [3]. Altera. VGA Core for Altera DE2/DE1 Boards. [Online] October 2006. [Cited: April 2, 2011.] ftp://ftp.altera.com/up/pub/University_Program_IP_Cores/VGA.pdf. [4]. Altera. Altera Users Manual. [Online] 2006. ftp://ftp.altera.com/up/pub/webdocs/DE2_UserManual.pdf.

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