Design: Layouts

[amclain]

As discussed in the 2020-06-23 meeting, we need to design a system to lay out pixels that don't conform to a perfect grid (like the Keybow does). We need to be able to accommodate the zig-zag layout of keys and pixels like on a full size keyboard.

Keybow's grid:

Zig-zag of a full size keyboard:

[amclain]

We had some cool and insightful suggestions from "a reputable source":

• We don't need to offload animations to the hardware's graphics processor.
• Take scenic, use its math functions (i.e. matrix math), ignore the rest of scenic. Check out the c_src folder.
• Have an output array of vectors (pixels), have an input array of things you want to draw. Take the output vectors and try to find what's being drawn in input space. Let the vectors do the magic for you.
  • Calculate the output for each pixel. Treat it like ray casting.
  • This approach works better for a small number of pixels (like the ~200 we would have on a keyboard), rather than the traditional rendering approach which is optimized for millions of pixels on a display.