mcu-renderer is a C-language graphics library for MCUs, focused on rendering non-flickering, anti-aliased text with low resource use on both monochrome and color LCD displays.
- Aimed at MCUs with little memory.
- Common API for monochrome and color displays.
- Very fast anti-aliased font rendering.
- High font compression ratio.
- Adjustable font bit-depth.
- C-string, UTF-8 and UTF-16 support.
- On color displays: requires only a small RGB565 framebuffer covering two or more characters.
- On monochrome displays: requires a full framebuffer.
- SDL graphics for testing on a PC.
To start using mcu-renderer, include the appropriate header file.
In order to initialize the library, call the corresponding mr_xxx_init() function. The display is initially turned off, allowing you to draw before the first screen update. To turn the display on, call mr_xxx_set_display(). On color LCD screens, you also need to disable sleep mode with mr_xxx_set_sleep().
Next, set up the fonts. You may use the fonts available in the fonts folder, or prepare your own, as the Preparing fonts section explains.
After that, set up a screen layout consisting of non-overlapping rectangles. This will avoid any flickering when updating the screen.
To draw a filled rectangle, call mr_set_fill_color() to set the fill color and mr_draw_rectangle() for the actual drawing. You can convert web colors (e.g. #ff2020) to mcu-renderer colors with the mr_get_color macro.
To draw an image in a user-provided RGB565 framebuffer, call mr_draw_image().
To draw a text rectangle, call mr_set_font() to set the font, mr_set_fill_color() to set the background color, mr_set_text_color() to set the text color, and mr_draw_text(), mr_draw_text_utf8() and mr_draw_text_utf16() to render C-strings, UTF-8 strings and UTF-16 strings, respectively. The offset parameter specifies the upper left corner of the text within the drawing rectangle: to center text horizontally, use the mr_get_text_width(), mr_get_text_utf8_width() and mr_get_text_utf16_width() functions; to center text vertically, get the current font's metrics with mr_get_cap_height() (height of uppercase A), mr_get_ascent() (top of line to baseline), mr_get_descent() (baseline to bottom of line) and mr_get_line_height() (height of line). Make sure you set the font before retrieving any metrics.
Rectangle bounds may not exceed the display size. The offset parameter of the text drawing functions is not limited.
Monochrome displays and SDL require a screen refresh. For refreshing the screen, call mr_xxx_refresh_screen() after you finished drawing.
See the examples folder.
(ASCII characters 0x20-0x7e)
(sizes in bytes)
| Font | Roboto 12 px | Roboto 24 px | Roboto 48 px | Roboto 72 px |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Adafruit_GFX/TFT_eSPI (1 bpp) | 3832 | 14589 | 56677 | 129389 |
| u8g2 (1 bpp) | 1508 | 3039 | 6632 | N/A |
| mcu-renderer 1 bpp | 1473 | 2891 | 5902 | 9511 |
| mcu-renderer 2 bpp | 2052 | 4162 | 8743 | 13969 |
| mcu-renderer 3 bpp | 2695 | 5677 | 12128 | 18701 |
| mcu-renderer 4 bpp | 3328 | 7329 | 15533 | 23676 |
| MCUFont (4 bpp) | 3125 | 6296 | 12969 | 20045 |
| TFT_eSPI (vlw) | 7642 | 19387 | 65833 | 143333 |
In order to convert your fonts to the mcu-renderer format, use the fontconv tool (available in binary form under releases), which lets you convert both .bdf and .pcf bitmap fonts as well as .ttf, .ttc, .otf, .otc and .woff vector fonts.
In digital typography, 72 points is usually defined as 96 pixels. For rasterizing a vector font to a given pixel size, convert the pixel size to a point size by multiplying by the factor 4/3. Not all fonts follow this rule, so you might need to tweak this factor.
fontconv calculates the cap height (the height of the uppercase letter A) as the difference between the ascent height (top of line to baseline) and the descent height (baseline to bottom of line). On some fonts this calculation is inaccurate, so you can override the cap height to achieve the correct result. You can also override the ascent height and the descent height.
- Roboto font: great font for embedded systems
- Material symbols: great symbol font
- Font forge: vector font editor
- Bits'N'Picas: bitmap font editor
- FontDrop!: online glyph viewer
- Oh My Glyph: online glyph copy+paste
- Pinetools blend colors: Online color blender
- RGB565 color picker: Online RGB565 color picker