Embedded GUI

For a display with internal GRAM and self-refresh technology, no canvas memory is required. However, to improve drawing performance, or for a display configuration that does not utilize GRAM local to the display, a canvas memory area is defined by the application.

Canvas memory requirements are a function of the canvas size as well as the color depth, and are defined by the formula:

Canvas RAM (bytes) = (x * y * (bpp/8))

Where “x” and “y” are the dimensions of the canvas (display).

Most applications also utilize graphical resources, which are not included in the core GUIX library storage requirements. These resources include fonts, graphical icons (pixelmaps), and static strings. This data can be stored in the const memory section (i.e. FLASH).

The size of this memory area is dependent on a number of factors, including the number and size of unique fonts used, the number and size of the graphical icons used, the output color format, and whether or not each resource is using compressed data, since GUIX supports RLE compression of both font and pixelmap data. The storage requirements for each resource are displayed within the GUIX Studio application, allowing the user to track and monitor the amount of flash memory that will be consumed by the application resources.

Like THREADX, the size of GUIX automatically scales based on the services actually used by the application. This virtually eliminates the need for complicated configuration and build parameters, making things easier for the developer.

In addition, GUIX provides optimized clipping, drawing, and event handling. All of this and a general performance-oriented design philosophy help GUIX achieve the fastest possible performance.

ISO 26262 ASIL D and EN 50128. The certification confirms that GUIX can be used in the development of safety-related software for the highest safety integrity levels of IEC-61508, IEC-62304, ISO 26262 and EN 50128 for the “Functional Safety of electrical, electronic, and programmable electronic safety-related systems.” SGS-TUV Saar, formed through a joint venture of Germany’s SGS-Group and TUV Saarland, has become the leading accredited, independent company for testing, auditing, verifying and certifying embedded software for safety-related systems worldwide. The industrial safety standard IEC 61508, and all standards that are derived from it, including IEC-62304, ISO 26262 and EN 50128, are used to assure the functional safety of electrical, electronic, and programmable electronic safety-related medical devices, process control systems, industrial machinery, automobiles and railway control systems.

on the desktop and generate C code that runs on the actual target. Applications can then add their own custom event handling and drawing functions to complete their GUI.

Using the GUIX API is straightforward. The GUIX API is both intuitive and highly functional. The API names are made of real words and not the “alphabet soup” and/or the highly abbreviated names that are so common in other file system products. All GUIX APIs have a leading and follow a noun-verb naming convention. Furthermore, there is a functional consistency throughout the API. For example, all APIs that initialize a widget control block are named < widget_type>_create, and the create function parameters for each widget type are always defined in the same order.

It’s easy for the application to create its own customer widgets as well.

All functions support anti-aliasing on high color depth targets, and all shapes can be filled our outlined, including solid and pixelmap pattern fills. All drawing primitives support brush alpha when running at 16 bpp and higher color depth. Drawing functions include:

The GUIX font format supports 8bpp anti-aliasing, 4bpp anti-aliasing, and 1bpp monochrome fonts. For the most resource-constrained applications, GUIX pre-renders the TrueType fonts to a compressed bitmap format using our GUIX Studio desktop tool.

JPG and PNG file decoder implementation. This implementation supports color space conversion, dithering, and runtime creation of GUIX-compatible pixelmap format images.

16 bpp 565 rgb format, 16 bpp 4:4:4:4 format, 32 bpp x:r:g:b format, and 32 bpp a:r:g:b format. In addition, GUIX is integrated with many of the most popular LCD controllers and hardware accelerators (ST ChromeArt, Renesas Synergy, etc.).

GUIX fully supports touchscreen (including gesture support), pen, and virtual keyboard input devices.

GUIX Studio automatically generates C code compatible with the GUIX library, ready to be compiled and run on the target. Developers can produce pre-rendered fonts for use within an application using the integrated GUIX Studio font generation tool. Fonts can be generated in monochrome or anti-aliased formats, and are optimized to save space on the target. Fonts can include any set of characters, including Unicode characters for multi-lingual applications.

GUIX Studio facilitates the import of graphics from PNG or JPG files with conversion to compressed GUIX Pixelmaps for use on the target system. Many of the GUIX widget types are designed to incorporate user graphics for a custom look and feel. In addition, GUIX Studio allows customization of the default colors and drawing styles used by the GUIX widgets, allowing developers to tune the appearance of GUIX very easily. Generation and maintenance of application strings is another built-in facility of GUIX Studio. This enables developers to design an application using one language for developing, and quickly and easily add support for additional languages after the product is released. A complete GUIX application can be executed on a PC desktop within the GUIX Studio environment, allowing a quick and easy generation and demonstration of GUI concepts, testing of screen flows, and observation of screen transitions and animations. When completed, a design can be exported as target-ready C data structures, ready to be compiled and linked with the GUIX and THREADX libraries.

GUIX and GUIX Studio support multiple resource themes, allowing an application to be easily reskinned at run-time. Fonts, colors, and pixelmaps can be changed at run-time with one simple API.

Learn more about .

and run a GUI application on the PC, and use the same application code on your target for debugging, rapid prototyping, demonstration, and WYSIWYG target operation.

embedded GUI design and implementation easier. As a result, GUIX is one of the most popular GUI solutions for embedded IoT devices.

Our consistent time-to-market advantage is built on:

of licenses as well as the ability to create a custom license for unique situations. Please see the for more information.

Throughout the years, GUIX source code has set the bar in quality and ease of understanding. In addition, the convention of having one function per file provides for easy source navigation. The following is an example of the GUIX function:

Advanced Architectures: