STMicroelectronics TouchGFX 4.12 software framework for STM32 microcontrollers

Click2Contact

STMicroelectronics has updated the TouchGFX user-interface software framework for STM32 microcontrollers, adding features that enable smoother and more dynamic user interfaces and lower demand on the memory and CPU.

TouchGFX is a free tool in the STM32 ecosystem. Comprising two parts — TouchGFX Designer PC tool for designing and configuring rich user interfaces and TouchGFX Engine software that runs on the end device to secure high UI performance — version 4.12 contains updates to both. Users can build sophisticated user interfaces on one-chip display solutions without external RAM or flash, save power for long battery life and benefit from quick and easy development.

In TouchGFX Engine, a partial framebuffer mode allows the buffer to operate using as little as 6 KB of RAM. A fully functioning user interface can have just 16 KB of RAM, so that small STM32 MCUs can deliver good user experiences without external memory. 8-bit luminance (L8) with 16-, 24- and 32-bit palettes reduces demand for flash memory. Even with this smaller memory, TouchGFX maximises performance by leveraging the STM32 Chrom-ART Accelerator to accelerate graphics and handle sophisticated effects. There is also a cacheable container with dynamic bitmap that reduces CPU loading to run smooth and fluid animations at high frame rates.

Users can now choose 6-bit colour depth, which saves both RAM and flash while making 64 colours available for creating entry-level GUIs. Support for external non-memory-mapped flash helps build basic user interfaces within tight system resources.

The updates to TouchGFX Designer include extensions to the powerful set of customisable widgets, adding features such as Scale and Rotate that increase the power of simple drag-and-drop programming. Custom triggers and actions reduce reliance on coding to create sophisticated features, and an Image tab lets users quickly configure individual attributes such as image format, dither algorithm and layout rotation. There are also performance improvements that accelerate automatic code generation and reduce loading time, as well as easy-to-use functions for guiding text, such as bring-forward and send-to-back.

For more information: www.st/com/touchgfxdesigner.