feat(scroll): let users pick a crisp speed for their own panel

Whole-pixel motion was previously only available at multiples of the refresh
rate -- 100, 200, 300 px/s on a 100Hz panel. 100 px/s crosses a 256px panel in
2.6s, which is brisk for reading, and everything slower had to blend (blur) or
repeat frames unevenly (judder). There was no way to ask for 50 px/s and get
clean motion.

SwapOnVSync takes a framerate_fraction the display manager never passed. It
holds each frame for N panel refreshes; the panel keeps refreshing at its full
rate throughout, so holding costs nothing in flicker and only changes how often
a NEW image is presented. That turns 50 px/s into one whole pixel every second
refresh instead of half a pixel every refresh.

The crisp speeds are therefore refresh_hz / hold * pixels_per_frame, and that
ladder depends on the panel: a Pi Zero on a long chain has a different set of
good speeds from a Pi 4 on a short one. crisp_ladder() enumerates them and
solve_crisp() picks the best match for a requested speed.

solve_crisp weights motion quality rather than picking the numerically nearest
entry, which matters more than it sounds. Asked for 30 px/s, nearest-by-value
answers 28.6 -- 2px jumps at 14fps -- over 33.3, which is single-pixel motion
at 33fps and obviously better on the panel. The target is also clamped into the
ladder's range first, because relative error saturates near 1.0 for a target
far outside it and the quality penalty would otherwise answer "10000 px/s" with
the slowest entry.

configure() snaps to the ladder and applies the hold when given a display
manager. Without one the hold silently cannot happen and motion falls back to
fractional pixels, so it warns rather than failing quietly. set_frame_hold()
resets to 1 when scrolling stops, so one plugin's pacing cannot leak into
whatever is on screen next.

scripts/scroll_speeds.py is the user-facing part: it prints the ladder for the
configured rate, measures what the panel ACTUALLY manages (--measure, for
hardware that cannot reach its configured limit), highlights the nearest option
to a wanted speed, and demos one live. It never starts or stops the display
service itself -- doing that inside a script stranded the panel twice today.

Speeds below ~20 px/s remain stepped regardless. That is the pixel pitch, not a
software limit.

Also fixes the dirty-tracking test spy, which stubbed SwapOnVSync with a
single-argument function and would have masked the new call as a failed push,
and rewrites a configure() test that had started passing for the wrong reason:
it asserted a judder warning, which snapping now prevents, and was matching the
unrelated "hold could not be applied" warning instead.

183 tests pass on the Pi.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
This commit is contained in:
Chuck
2026-09-04 16:32:52 -04:00
co-authored by Claude Opus 5
parent 6031e70525
commit 6e8a9dd24b
6 changed files with 729 additions and 16 deletions
+53 -2
View File
@@ -47,12 +47,17 @@ class _SwapSpy:
def __init__(self, matrix):
self.matrix = matrix
self.count = 0
self.last_frame_hold = None
self._orig = matrix.SwapOnVSync
def __enter__(self):
def counting(canvas):
def counting(canvas, *args):
# *args carries framerate_fraction, which display_manager passes so
# a frame can be held for several refreshes. Signature must match
# the real binding or the spy hides a TypeError as a failed push.
self.count += 1
return self._orig(canvas)
self.last_frame_hold = args[0] if args else 1
return self._orig(canvas, *args)
self.matrix.SwapOnVSync = counting
return self
@@ -221,3 +226,49 @@ class TestKillSwitch:
if __name__ == "__main__":
sys.exit(pytest.main([__file__, "-v"]))
class TestFrameHold:
"""Holding a frame for N refreshes is how a scroll runs slower than one
pixel per refresh without fractional pixel positions."""
def test_hold_reaches_swap_on_vsync(self, dm):
dm.set_scrolling_state(True)
dm.set_frame_hold(3)
try:
dm.draw.rectangle([0, 0, 9, 9], fill=(120, 0, 200))
with _SwapSpy(dm.matrix) as spy:
dm.update_display()
assert spy.count == 1
assert spy.last_frame_hold == 3
finally:
dm.set_scrolling_state(False)
def test_default_is_every_refresh(self, dm):
dm.set_scrolling_state(True)
try:
dm.draw.rectangle([0, 0, 11, 11], fill=(0, 120, 200))
with _SwapSpy(dm.matrix) as spy:
dm.update_display()
assert spy.last_frame_hold == 1
finally:
dm.set_scrolling_state(False)
def test_hold_resets_when_scrolling_stops(self, dm):
"""One plugin's pacing must not leak into whatever is on screen next."""
dm.set_scrolling_state(True)
dm.set_frame_hold(5)
dm.set_scrolling_state(False)
dm.set_scrolling_state(True)
try:
dm.draw.rectangle([0, 0, 13, 13], fill=(200, 120, 0))
with _SwapSpy(dm.matrix) as spy:
dm.update_display()
assert spy.last_frame_hold == 1
finally:
dm.set_scrolling_state(False)
@pytest.mark.parametrize("bad,expected", [(0, 1), (-4, 1), (None, 1), ("x", 1)])
def test_unusable_holds_are_ignored_or_floored(self, dm, bad, expected):
dm.set_frame_hold(bad)
assert dm._frame_hold == expected