Files
LEDMatrix/web_interface
ChuckBuildsandClaude 7b6b7cd153 Sub-pixel scrolling: motion at the frame rate, not the pixel rate
With integer positioning the number of distinct frames per second equals the
scroll speed in px/s, however fast the loop renders. Measured at 50px/s and
78.7fps, 36% of frames were byte-identical: the extra frames cost work and
bought no motion, and what was left was 50 discrete 1px steps a second.

Two things were wrong with the pre-existing sub-pixel support. get_visible_portion
never consulted sub_pixel_scrolling — it always took the integer path, so the flag
and _get_visible_portion_subpixel were dead code. And that implementation needed
scipy.ndimage.shift, which is not installed on the target devices (HAS_SCIPY is
False there), so it would not have interpolated even if reached. Verified both:
positions 1000.0 and 1000.5 produced identical frames either way.

Blending is now wired up and implemented with numpy. Two details make it
affordable: slice cached_array directly instead of building two PIL images only
to convert them straight back (the naive version measured 15x the integer path),
and use fixed-point uint16 multiply-add rather than float32, which suits the Pi's
cores and gives finer weighting than the panel can resolve. Result 0.939ms
against 0.237ms — 0.70ms added per frame, a 1065fps ceiling.

Measured on hardware: 81.2 fps with blending on, against 78.7 with it off, so no
cost within noise — and every frame is now a distinct position rather than one in
three being a repeat.

The trade is a slight horizontal softening of text, since each frame blends two
positions. Set smooth_scroll false for maximum crispness.

Also benchmarked and cleared as non-issues: extending the strip costs 9.4ms on an
11,000px strip and trimming 2.5ms, both under one frame at this rate.

Co-Authored-By: Claude <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01KEZK1P1Q1fu5pcuVrkrCFZ
2026-07-29 15:14:41 -04:00
..
2025-12-27 14:15:49 -05:00
2025-12-27 14:15:49 -05:00
2025-12-27 14:15:49 -05:00

LED Matrix Web Interface V3

Modern, production web interface for controlling the LED Matrix display.

Overview

This directory contains the active V3 web interface with the following features:

  • Real-time display preview via Server-Sent Events (SSE)
  • Plugin management and configuration
  • System monitoring and logs
  • Modern, responsive UI
  • RESTful API

Directory Structure

web_interface/
├── app.py                    # Main Flask application
├── start.py                  # Startup script
├── run.sh                    # Shell runner script
├── requirements.txt          # Python dependencies
├── blueprints/               # Flask blueprints
│   ├── api_v3.py            # API endpoints
│   └── pages_v3.py          # Page routes
├── templates/                # HTML templates
│   └── v3/
│       ├── base.html
│       ├── index.html
│       └── partials/
└── static/                   # CSS/JS assets
    └── v3/
        ├── app.css
        └── app.js

Running the Web Interface

Standalone (Development)

From the project root:

python3 web_interface/start.py

Or using the shell script:

./web_interface/run.sh

As a Service (Production)

The web interface can run as a systemd service that starts automatically based on the web_display_autostart configuration setting:

sudo systemctl start ledmatrix-web
sudo systemctl enable ledmatrix-web  # Start on boot

Accessing the Interface

Once running, access the web interface at:

Configuration

The web interface reads configuration from:

  • config/config.json - Main configuration
  • config/config_secrets.json - API keys and secrets

API Documentation

The V3 API is mounted at /api/v3/ (app.py:144). For the complete list and request/response formats, see docs/REST_API_REFERENCE.md. Quick reference for the most common endpoints:

Configuration

  • GET /api/v3/config/main - Get main configuration
  • POST /api/v3/config/main - Save main configuration
  • GET /api/v3/config/secrets - Get secrets configuration
  • POST /api/v3/config/raw/main - Save raw main config (Config Editor)
  • POST /api/v3/config/raw/secrets - Save raw secrets

Display & System Control

  • GET /api/v3/system/status - System status
  • POST /api/v3/system/action - Control display (action body: start_display, stop_display, restart_display_service, restart_web_service, git_pull, reboot_system, shutdown_system, enable_autostart, disable_autostart)
  • GET /api/v3/display/current - Current display frame
  • GET /api/v3/display/on-demand/status - On-demand status
  • POST /api/v3/display/on-demand/start - Trigger on-demand display
  • POST /api/v3/display/on-demand/stop - Clear on-demand

Plugins

  • GET /api/v3/plugins/installed - List installed plugins
  • GET /api/v3/plugins/config?plugin_id=<id> - Get plugin config
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/config - Update plugin configuration
  • GET /api/v3/plugins/schema?plugin_id=<id> - Get plugin schema
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/toggle - Enable/disable plugin
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/install - Install from registry
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/install-from-url - Install from GitHub URL
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/uninstall - Uninstall plugin
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/update - Update plugin

Plugin Store

  • GET /api/v3/plugins/store/list - List available registry plugins
  • GET /api/v3/plugins/store/github-status - GitHub authentication status
  • POST /api/v3/plugins/store/refresh - Refresh registry from GitHub

Real-time Streams (SSE)

SSE stream endpoints are defined directly on the Flask app (app.py:607-619 — includes the CSRF exemption and rate-limit hookup alongside the three route definitions), not on the api_v3 blueprint:

  • GET /api/v3/stream/stats - System statistics stream
  • GET /api/v3/stream/display - Display preview stream
  • GET /api/v3/stream/logs - Service logs stream

Development

When making changes to the web interface:

  1. Edit files in this directory
  2. Test changes by running python3 web_interface/start.py
  3. Restart the service if running: sudo systemctl restart ledmatrix-web

Notes

  • Templates and static files use the v3/ prefix to allow for future versions
  • The interface uses Flask blueprints for modular organization
  • SSE streams provide real-time updates without polling