This project is a lightweight screengrabber that is required in order to make the Adalight Arduino project work. For each frame it captures, a color average is done for each pixel location and everything is parsed then sent to the Arduino board through serial port interface.
First, the solution needs to be compiled. If Visual Studio is used as the compiler, for better performance, setting the solution configuration at Release will make a drastic change. After this is done, simply launch the executable. It will be running in the taskbar, where you can exit it at any time you want by right clicking on the icon.
Options are now loaded from a file located right beside the executable. The options file must be named options.json. An exemple options file is available in this repository at ambilight/options.json. The most important fields are portname, baudRate, coordinates and radius. The first two need to match the confirguration of your Arduino setup.
The value for portname can be found in the Arduino IDE, in Tools and Port.
The value for baudRate needs to match the value specified in the sketch uploaded to the Arduino. Usual values can be found on the Arduino documentation. Higher values result in higher refresh rate but can affect CPU usage.
The coordinates field is an array of x and y pixel coordinates on your screen. This array must be ordered in a way that it matches the leds ordering starting from the Arduino pin. These coordinates will be the positions of where to sample the screen.
The radius field represent the maximum distance from a coordinate that needs to be considered in the pixel average sent to the Arduino.
The luts field is used to adjust the color accuracy of the pixels. The first one in this list is the default one, and the ones after are used if the physical screen monitor brightness is changed to a lower value than the threshold.
The smoothing field gives the user the ability to have the pixels slowly respond to changes on the screen. Its value should be between 0 and 1.
The targetFrameRate field is used when the high fidelity mode is not activated. It limits the program refresh rate, thus reducing CPU load. High fidelity mode can be enabled from the taskbar when a smoother result is needed but will result in higher CPU usage.
This program is a Windows based application only since it is based on the Win32 API. This project was started because of a working Adalight Arduino project from James Bruce where you can find the source code here. Doing this project I've learned a lot about the Win32 ecosystem and how Serial communication works. I've also learn to always keep optimization in mind while still having an understandable code base. I'm glad I can now more easily bring this project to another computer and customize it to the user's need.
The MIT License