Create and display colorful animations using the Microsoft Expressive Pixels Application and display them on your Adafruit Matrix Portal!
In this guide, you will connect the Expressive Pixels Windows app with an Adafruit Matrix Portal RGB LED matrix panel to:
- display dazzling animations on the RGB LED matrix
- save images directly to the Matrix Portal using its built-in flash chip
- trigger animations using the Matrix Portal's GPIO pins.
The ExpressivePixels open-source firmware can run on a variety of different types of hardware. We've collaborated with Microsoft to create a platform implementation for the Adafruit Matrix Portal using the Adafruit_Protomatter RGB Matrix library.
Expressive Pixels is a Microsoft Research project that combines an Open-Source embedded firmware with an application which lets you create, manage, and display animations on colorful RGB displays (or RGB Matrix shields).
The firmware in this guide is was designed for the Adafruit Matrix Portal add-on for RGB matrixes.
Adafruit carries a number of RGB LED Matrices, varying between the display resolution, space between LEDs (pitch) and whether rigid or flexible. Choose your favorite - larger pitch means the display is larger, width and height-wise but with the same number of pixels, and larger may be easier to read further away. Smaller for near your desk, for example.
If you'd like your LEDs diffused (and if your LED matrix is 4mm pitch or smaller), some dark acrylic may help:
You may use a USB C power supply or a USB micro B with a micro B to C adapter
