Instead of the default Terminal typeface, we'll use a lovely typeface converted to a bitmap font for use on the matrix display.
In case you want to make your own font, this excellent guide shows how to use FontForge to do just that!
I selected the IBM Plex Mono Medium typeface. I then converted it to a single bitmap font in a size that works for the 64x32 pixel matrix display, and hand kerned the colon and space characters. Here is the modified .bdf font:
To use it, download and uncompress the zip file and then drag it onto the board's CIRCUITPY drive. In CircuitPython, the font is loaded so it can be used for text display.
Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format
Side note about Glyph Bitmap Distribution Format (BDF) fonts -- they are stored as text files that are human and computer readable, and you can even edit them by hand if you feel like getting super particular!
Here's what the letter 'A' glyph looks like in a typical converted .bdf font:
STARTCHAR A ENCODING 65 SWIDTH 681 0 DWIDTH 14 0 BBX 13 15 1 0 BITMAP 0200 0600 0700 0F00 0F00 0980 1980 18C0 30C0 3FC0 7FE0 6060 6030 C030 C018 ENDCHAR
Each of those lines after the word BITMAP is a hexidecimal pixel mapping of a row of the glyph. Here's what that looks like converted to binary, with each row padded to 16-bits:
0000001000000000 0000011000000000 0000011100000000 0000111100000000 0000111100000000 0000100110000000 0001100110000000 0001100011000000 0011000011000000 0011111111000000 0111111111100000 0110000001100000 0110000000110000 1100000000110000 1100000000011000
Glyph Tweaks
In case you wanted to add a stylish hat on top of your 'A', you could change the first row to: 1fc0 which is 0001111111000000 in binary.
Now, that's a bit of a silly example, but the great thing about this is that you can fine-tune your glyphs beyond what may be easily accomplished during the conversion process.
Page last edited March 08, 2024
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