Arduino + graphical LCD and video input?

Hi,

I am newbie with Arduino and electronics in general.

I have in mind a project that should be able to do following:

-display car speed - data taking from speed sensor and processed
-display coolant temp - temp sensor
-fuel level and consumption
-beside all those features i also want to display video signal from camera (rear mounted) and gps device (navigation)

My question is: there is any graphical lcd (i suppose with graphic processor) that can support displaying data from arduino and also have a video input for VGA signal?

Thank you in advance.

No specific suggestions, but I'd agree with your approach: architect around the idea of the Arduino outputting a video signal, rather than directly driving an LCD, and using a separate device for muxing the video channels for ultimate display to an LCD.

A place to start for looking for TV-out functionality for Arduino:

http://www.arduino.cc/playground/Main/InterfacingWithHardware#Video

A quick search turned up a few items, including this shield (TellyMate):

The folks on the mp3car.com forum might be able to help you here with specific hardware suggestions.

thank you @logic for you reply. I dont know if i am explicit about my project.

The ideea is to have something like this:

gathering & processing data with arduino via OEM car sensors and as well display on same lcd video from web camera or any other video signals like redirect output of nokia phone (running navigaion software) to same lcd.

So, there is such an LCD that supports arduino and also (triggered by something : switch , arduino command) display video from external source?

thanks

Nothing that I know of out-of-the-box will do exactly this, but there's a couple of options.

I'd probably start off looking at building around something like a MAX7456 to do OSD over the incoming video signal; examples:

http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1220054359

Folks have used this kind of thing for FPV. Feed that signal to an LCD that supports an incoming NTSC/PAL signal (an LCD designed to stand alone, rather than be integrated into a project), and you're off to the races. The results probably won't be quite as crisp as your sample photo, though.

Another option would be something like the TellyShield above plus sort of external MUX, again feeding into an off-the-shelf LCD. (I'm not sure what your options are here, as I'm not sure where you're planning on mounting this; keep in mind the problem of driver distraction here, if this is your own car: you may find it difficult to extract meaningful information from the data portions of the display with a full-color animated background.)

These are all just ideas; I'll be the first to admit I haven't done something like what you're suggesting (the gathering and processing of data from OEM vehicle sensors, yes, but video overlay isn't something I have direct experience with).

Is the idea to do a low-tech version of on-board DAQ and display like this?

I am newbie with Arduino and electronics in general.

I must say that this project, if it is at all possible, is going to be pushing the arduino to the limit. Outputting a composite video signal is in it's self very difficult and it does not always work well, a lot depends on the display. That video signal is only going to consist of simple blocky text not the smooth hi-res graphics you envisage. Having outputted a video signal then you need a LCD TV monitor to display it on and finally some mixers to combine the text and your video camera.

I am not saying you can't do something but it is a very steep learning curve and I would suggest you try a few simpler projects to build up your skills before you tackle something like this.

Hi,

Thank you all for your suggestions:

I dont want to display text overlapped on video, is either is rear cam displayed (video) or car parameters from sensors no both information.

About video overlay shield is a point of view, because i can display (when shift to reverse gear) video cam without text overlay and gear is nor revers display car params...
Any ideas are welcome :wink:

I just studied the overlay shield, it is close but i can display only text from arduino, i also want to display graphics and also not monochrome... any ideas for similar shields that can display graphics and not monochrome( i want brilliant colors :slight_smile: )?

Hello,

I found this http://www.aliexpress.com/product-fm/307308862-2-8-TFT-LCD-Module-AVR-Atmega32-Resource-OV7670-CMOS-Camera-wholesalers.html product that is a cmos camera Ommivision OV7670 capable of max 30fps linked to atmega32l and graphic lcd and pretend to deliver smooth realtime video.

As i compare atmega32L with atmega328P-PU (arduino's heart) looks very similar, the only things that helps this video smooth display is averlogic 3M-Bits FIFO for image buffer AL422B.
If anyone has experice with this averlogic chip please let me know, maybe we can integrate with arduino.

regards,
Daniel

How do you interface the Arduino to the video board? I want to view data on a car/ stereo/DVD player TV screen using the video input that is often available for a rear view camera etc.

How do you interface the Arduino to the video board?

Sorry you can't.
The arduino is not fast enough nor does it have enough memory for this.