// -- Motivation --

In 2021, we were in the grips of the pandemic. I wanted dynamic wall art to remind me of happier times and places.

// -- Parts and Materials --

* 3 x Waveshare 5.65inch e-Paper module, 7-color https://www.waveshare.com/product/displays/e-paper/epaper-1/5.65inch-e-paper-module-f.htm

* TinyPico https://www.tinypico.com

* 32GB microSD card and reader module

* E-Paper triptych board, manufactured by OSH Park

* 350mAh LiPo battery from Adafruit. Soon this will be upgraded to 6600mAh!

// -- Design --

The code repository is named "flowers". The original intent was to show generative images of alien flowers, they'd start growing at midnight, reach full bloom at noon, then decay. It turns out that flowers are fairly boring to generate programmatically, so I experimented with other subjects...

The carpet images aren't generative, they're real carpets you can buy, from Astro Carpet Mills: https://astrocarpetmills.com

Each carpet is drawn with randomized rotation, perspective, and point light intensity. The graphics code was developed from scratch, because that's the fun part (for me).

Currently, the TinyPico awakes every 24 hours, redraws images, and goes back to sleep. When it was fresh, the 350mAh battery lasted for about 3 weeks. The battery voltage is drawn in a tiny font, in the lower-right corner.

The frame was built from whatever I could find in the garage, which ended up being cheap plywood. It looked awful, but my partner suggested I "just hit it with matte black spray paint" and he was right, you can't see the sketchy craftsmanship anymore.

// -- Component Review --

Full-color e-Paper is still fairly new, and at this time, I cannot recommend using it. D: The contrast, brightness, and color saturation of these panels is not sufficient. I wanted vibrant colors and deep blacks, and I was disappointed by the panel's visual characteristics.

The ambient temperature seems to affect the color and contrast. I've seen these panels display rich, strong colors twice: on a hot day, and at Hardware Happy Hour under an outdoor gas heater. The rest of the time, the images appear faded and washed out.

I did experiment with custom waveforms; this led nowhere, and probably deserves its own post-mortem discussion.