I've finished a basic proof-of-concept for mapping the display.

There are 7 rows of WS2812 strips, each with 32 pixels in them. I built an array of 32 bytes which will use binary values as a frame buffer. This is limited to recording each pixel as on or off. That means I will be limited to a single color for message, which is a fine place to start.

A font file will be used. The procedure is to check the next letter in a message, pull the font file for that character, and shift those columns into the display.