rpi-rgb-led-matrix/python

Python bindings for RGB Matrix library

Building

In the root directory for the matrix library simply type:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python2.7-dev python-pillow -y
make build-python
sudo make install-python

You can also build for Python 3:

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install python3-dev python3-pillow -y
make build-python PYTHON=$(which python3)
sudo make install-python PYTHON=$(which python3)

Using the library

Be aware of the fact, that using the RGBMatrix requires root privileges. Therefore you will need to run all you python scripts as using sudo.

You find examples in the samples/ subdirectory. The examples all use the samplebase.py that provides some utility to all example programs, such as command-line parsing: all sample-programs accept --rows, --chain and --parallel as options to adapt to your configuration

cd samples
sudo ./runtext.py --chain=4

Here a complete example how to write an image viewer:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import time
import sys

from rgbmatrix import RGBMatrix
from PIL import Image

if len(sys.argv) < 2:
    sys.exit("Require an image argument")
else:
    image_file = sys.argv[1]

image = Image.open(image_file)

rows = 32
chain = 1
parallel = 1
matrix = RGBMatrix(rows, chain, parallel)

# Make image fit our screen.
image.thumbnail((matrix.width, matrix.height), Image.ANTIALIAS)

matrix.SetImage(image.convert('RGB'))

try:
    print("Press CTRL-C to stop.")
    while True:
        time.sleep(100)
except KeyboardInterrupt:
    sys.exit(0)