How to interface simulink and display with GC9A01A driver from waveshare?

I recently bought a waveshare 1.28 inch round display. I use a raspberry pi model 4 b as my micro controller. I have been able to diplsy texts and images using C and python. But I would like to do the same using simulink. I wanna be able to deply the code and have the display show some text or image based on certain button being pressed. It uses SPI communication. Can someone help me with how to do this?

Answer 1

[Ayush]

Hello David,

From your description, it seems you need some clarity on how to interface with the Rasberry Pi Model 4b microcontroller using Simulink and more specifically via SPI communication protocol. You can refer to the following documentations to know more about how to interface with Raspberry Pi and SPI communications:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/matlab/raspberrypiio-spi-interface.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/simulink/supportpkg/raspberrypi_ug/support-spi-communication.html

Furthermore, to display any image or text on the connected display on a button press you can create a custom MATLAB function block that is being called when the button input is taken through the pin connected with the board. Here is an example code for your reference:

% For MATLAB function block
function controlDisplay(buttonState)
    spi = spidev('Raspberry Pi', 'SPI0.0');
    
    if buttonState == 1
        % Display text
        cmd = [0x00]; % Example command for text display
        data = [your_text_data]; % Replace with actual text data
    else
        % Display image
        cmd = [0x01]; % Example command for image display
        data = [your_image_data]; % Replace with actual image data
    end
    
    write(spi, cmd);
    write(spi, data);
end

Additionally, you can also try to reuse or leverage your existng code/script written in the C or python by integrating the same in your custom MATLAB Function block. For more information on how to integrate C or python code respectively, you can refer to the following documentations:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/simulink/ug/incorporate-c-code-using-a-matlab-function-block.html

https://www.mathworks.com/help/simulink/ug/overview-of-integrating-python-code-with-simulink.html

Hope it helps!