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N+ showing Weather Underground information on VGA


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#1 ZakieM

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 12:45 PM

Using N+ to get weather forecast information from Weather Underground site

Features
  • Fully automatically identifies location in the globe and time
  • Graphically displays current and forecast weather information
  • Automatically synchronizes time and daylight savings from the internet (using NTP protocol)
  • Shows sunrise, sunset and moon phase information
  • Does not require any PC to be involved
  • Easy to connect and assembly, only Ethernet cable and power supply
  • Supports DHCP for network connection
  • Supports both VGA screens and small 3.2" screens

Code and instructions (very easy) in here

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Zakie Mashiah
Just a curious guy

#2 hanzibal

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 12:54 PM

Wow, really nice useful project and a great tutorial too!

A couple of questions:

1) Since you don't use a GPS, do you deternine location based on the IP of the N+?

2) Approximately what framerate do you achieve using the uVGA II adaptor from Spartfun?

Thanks for sharing this!

#3 ZakieM

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 01:03 PM

Thanks Hanzibal! Regarding #1, yes I do determine location based on external IP of the network the N+ is connected to. Good enough for weather information and likely to work at any home. Proxies will cause some problems. Regarding #2, I am not sure exactly as the screen I used does not report the complete VGA settings. It is a 800x480 in resolution but not sure how many Hz for the refresh. If your question is about the speed at which the display is updated, it is very good. The reason is the mentioned adapter has a "GPU" on it from 4D Systems, and all the graphical commands and layout of screen is done on that "GPU", and not by the N+.
Zakie Mashiah
Just a curious guy

#4 hanzibal

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 01:27 PM

If your question is about the speed at which the display is updated, it is very good. The reason is the mentioned adapter has a "GPU" on it from 4D Systems, and all the graphical commands and layout of screen is done on that "GPU", and not by the N+.

Yes, that's it. So the uVGA board maintains a framebuffer which the N+ accesses using commands to draw boxes, lines, text etc sort of incrementally? Or do you mean that the N+ only provide data to the uVGA which it then renders with its own GPU?

What about the graphics, have you pre-loaded bitmaps onto the uSD of the uVGA and then reference these from the N+ or how does that work?

#5 ZakieM

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 01:37 PM

The N+ only stream out data, that is it tells the uVGA (or other 4D screen) current temp is X and humidity Y and moon is Z etc.
The N+ also tells the uVGA the time and date.

The uVGA itself then is running a program I wrote (it is programmable using 4GL language) that split the screen to tiles, changes font sizes, colors and what have you. Icons and bitmaps are stored on SD card of the uVGA. That code and content of the SD is part of the ZIP file.

The N+ updates the uVGA only once in few minutes. In the mean time an internal timer on the uVGA is interrupting once a second so that you get a clock with seconds displayed.

Both N+ and uVGA have very inaccurate timing, but the N+ is slightly better. This is why the NTP is polled once in 6 hours and fixes the drifts of the N+ time, and then the N+ is also updating the uVGA.

The uVGA has two firmwares, the one I use that requires you to program in 4GL and another one that lets you send graphical commands from UART. Switching between the two is simple. Take a look at their site.
Zakie Mashiah
Just a curious guy

#6 hanzibal

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Posted 20 April 2012 - 05:01 PM

Cool! As for me, I have to pinch my arm every time I get across such a chip - I mean, the level and density of integration these days kind of makes you go "that tiny thing does what, you say?"

#7 ZakieM

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Posted 28 April 2012 - 10:41 PM

Ask Geo service has updated their service and new posted code here incorporates the changes required.

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Zakie Mashiah
Just a curious guy




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