Author: hjw5774

This is a follow up to a previous page on how to get the ESP32-CAM and round GC9A01 TFT display to work. This revision lowers the frame time from 77ms to 57ms, thus increasing the frame rate to 17.5 FPS.

As always, in the interests of openness and honesty: these changes were suggested by u/the_3d6 on Reddit.

As the frame size of the camera and the display are both 240×240, it is possible to cast a pointer when creating the sprite then, effectively point both pointers at each other and let it rip. (As you can tell, I don’t understand pointers much…).

There is no change to the User_Setup.h file which you can find over at the original page.

The revised code is as follows, it looks mostly the same, and that’s because it is. 72% of the sketch code is just setting up the camera:

#include "esp_camera.h"
#include <TFT_eSPI.h> // Hardware-specific library
#include <SPI.h>

#define CAMERA_MODEL_AI_THINKER
#define PWDN_GPIO_NUM     32
#define RESET_GPIO_NUM    -1
#define XCLK_GPIO_NUM      0
#define SIOD_GPIO_NUM     26
#define SIOC_GPIO_NUM     27
#define Y9_GPIO_NUM       35
#define Y8_GPIO_NUM       34
#define Y7_GPIO_NUM       39
#define Y6_GPIO_NUM       36
#define Y5_GPIO_NUM       21
#define Y4_GPIO_NUM       19
#define Y3_GPIO_NUM       18
#define Y2_GPIO_NUM        5
#define VSYNC_GPIO_NUM    25
#define HREF_GPIO_NUM     23
#define PCLK_GPIO_NUM     22

TFT_eSPI tft = TFT_eSPI();       // Invoke custom library
TFT_eSprite spr = TFT_eSprite(&tft);

camera_config_t config;

uint16_t *scr;

//////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
void setup() {

  Serial.begin(115200);

  tft.init();
  tft.setRotation(0);
  tft.fillScreen(TFT_BLACK);
  scr = (uint16_t*)spr.createSprite(240, 240);

  config.ledc_channel = LEDC_CHANNEL_0;
  config.ledc_timer = LEDC_TIMER_0;
  config.pin_d0 = Y2_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d1 = Y3_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d2 = Y4_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d3 = Y5_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d4 = Y6_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d5 = Y7_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d6 = Y8_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_d7 = Y9_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_xclk = XCLK_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_pclk = PCLK_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_vsync = VSYNC_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_href = HREF_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_sscb_sda = SIOD_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_sscb_scl = SIOC_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_pwdn = PWDN_GPIO_NUM;
  config.pin_reset = RESET_GPIO_NUM;
  config.xclk_freq_hz = 20000000;
  config.frame_size = FRAMESIZE_240X240;
  config.pixel_format = PIXFORMAT_RGB565; 
  config.grab_mode = CAMERA_GRAB_WHEN_EMPTY;
  config.fb_location = CAMERA_FB_IN_PSRAM;
  config.jpeg_quality = 12;
  config.fb_count = 1;

  esp_err_t err = esp_camera_init(&config);

  sensor_t * s = esp_camera_sensor_get();
  s->set_brightness(s, 0);     // -2 to 2
  s->set_contrast(s, 0);       // -2 to 2
  s->set_saturation(s, 0);     // -2 to 2
  s->set_special_effect(s, 0); // 0 to 6 (0 - No Effect, 1 - Negative, 2 - Grayscale, 3 - Red Tint, 4 - Green Tint, 5 - Blue Tint, 6 - Sepia)
  s->set_whitebal(s, 1);       // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_awb_gain(s, 1);       // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_wb_mode(s, 0);        // 0 to 4 - if awb_gain enabled (0 - Auto, 1 - Sunny, 2 - Cloudy, 3 - Office, 4 - Home)
  s->set_exposure_ctrl(s, 1);  // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_aec2(s, 0);           // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_ae_level(s, 0);       // -2 to 2
  s->set_aec_value(s, 300);    // 0 to 1200
  s->set_gain_ctrl(s, 1);      // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_agc_gain(s, 0);       // 0 to 30
  s->set_gainceiling(s, (gainceiling_t)0);  // 0 to 6
  s->set_bpc(s, 0);            // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_wpc(s, 1);            // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_raw_gma(s, 1);        // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_lenc(s, 1);           // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_hmirror(s, 0);        // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_vflip(s, 0);          // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_dcw(s, 1);            // 0 = disable , 1 = enable
  s->set_colorbar(s, 0);       // 0 = disable , 1 = enable

  tft.setTextColor(TFT_WHITE);
  tft.drawString("Loading...", 105, 105, 2);
  delay(1000);

}
//////////////////////////////////
void loop() {

  //take picture
  camera_fb_t  * fb = NULL;
  fb = esp_camera_fb_get();
  unsigned long initalTime = millis();

  for (size_t i = 0; i < 57600; i++) {    //240x240px = 57600
    //create 16 bit colour from two bytes. 
    byte first_byte = fb->buf[i * 2];
    byte second_byte = fb->buf[i * 2 + 1];
    scr[i] = (second_byte << 8) + first_byte;   
  }

  spr.pushSprite(0,0);
  unsigned long frameTime = millis() - initalTime;
  Serial.print("Frame time(ms) = "); Serial.println(frameTime);
  esp_camera_fb_return(fb);   //return the frame buffer back to the driver for reuse

}