{"id":19195,"date":"2017-02-17T11:00:11","date_gmt":"2017-02-17T19:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.digilentinc.com\/?p=19195"},"modified":"2021-06-11T10:43:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-11T17:43:12","slug":"introducing-the-digilent-multi-touch-display-shield","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/introducing-the-digilent-multi-touch-display-shield\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing the Digilent Multi-Touch Display Shield!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19388 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-shield-oblique-3.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"217\" data-wp-pid=\"19388\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-shield-oblique-3.png 1000w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-shield-oblique-3-600x435.png 600w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-shield-oblique-3-768x557.png 768w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-shield-oblique-3-800x580.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 299px) 100vw, 299px\" \/>Introducing the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/multi-touch-display-shield-smart-display\/\">Digilent Multi-Touch Display Shield!<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Multi-Touch Display Shield is a gorgeous 2.8\u201c touchscreen display with a powerful on-board microcontroller that performs graphics processing tasks. The display is a capacitive touchscreen with QVGA resolution (320\u00d7240) and two finger multi-touch support.<\/p>\n<p>Easy on the eyes as it may be, the most compelling aspect of the Multi-Touch Display Shield is actually the user experience. We put a lot of time into making this product user-friendly, so we&#8217;re equally excited to announce the\u00a0<a class=\"wikilink1\" title=\"reference:software:mtds:start\" href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/reference\/software\/mtds\/start\">Multi-Touch Display System (MTDS) Firmware<\/a> and the associated libraries!<\/p>\n<p>The firmware plus libraries allow you to design sleek, stylish user interfaces very quickly and with very little code. The timing dependent tasks are handled by the firmware, so integrating the display into existing projects is also a snap. Some of the key functionality provided by the libraries include the ability to draw basic shapes and text, draw images stored on microSD with binary transparency, draw buttons and easily check if they have been pressed, and check the status and location of the user&#8217;s two fingers. The libraries are supported in Arduino IDE and Xilinx SDK, and have been tested with Arduino, chipKIT, and <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/arty-artix-7-fpga-development-board-for-makers-and-hobbyists\/\">Arty<\/a> host boards.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_19200\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19200\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19200 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/multi-touch-display-system-diagram-1.png\" width=\"600\" height=\"214\" data-wp-pid=\"19200\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19200\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Hardware and software involved in a typical MTDS setup.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>The Multi-Touch Display\u00a0<em>System<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/reference\/software\/mtds\/start\">Multi-Touch Display System (MTDS)<\/a> is a firmware\/library combination that brings a revolutionarily simple (told you we&#8217;re excited) experience to the process of designing embedded user interfaces (UI&#8217;s) on touchscreen displays. The firmware comes factory-loaded on the Display Platform&#8217;s processor, and the library runs on the host platform, providing the application designer with an intuitive <abbr title=\"\" data-original-title=\"Application Programming Interface\">API<\/abbr>. The above image diagrams the hardware and software involved in a typical MTDS setup. The yellow blocks represent the MTDS software, the green block represents the user software, and the blue arrows represent hardware connections. Host libraries are currently available for Arduino IDE and Xilinx SDK.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" wp-image-19389 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/pmodmtds-coming-soon.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"413\" height=\"332\" data-wp-pid=\"19389\" \/>One of the best parts about the Multi-Touch Display System is that it is designed to support the hardware in other form factors. Hint: keep an eye out for the Pmod version coming around the corner!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_19203\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-19203\" style=\"width: 904px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-19203 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/mtds-in-use-arty-and-arduino.png\" width=\"904\" height=\"397\" data-wp-pid=\"19203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/mtds-in-use-arty-and-arduino.png 904w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/mtds-in-use-arty-and-arduino-600x263.png 600w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/mtds-in-use-arty-and-arduino-768x337.png 768w, https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/mtds-in-use-arty-and-arduino-800x351.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 904px) 100vw, 904px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-19203\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Multi-Touch Display Shield plugged into an <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/shop\/arty-artix-7-fpga-development-board-for-makers-and-hobbyists\/\">Arty FPGA<\/a> board on the left and an Arduino board on the right.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>Getting Started<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>To get started with Arduino IDE or MPIDE, go to the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/reference\/software\/mtds\/start\">Multi-Touch Display System wiki page<\/a> and download the Arduino package available in the Latest Downloads section and follow the included Quickstart.txt guide.<\/p>\n<p>To get started with Xilinx SDK on your Digilent FPGA platform, follow the <a href=\"https:\/\/digilent.com\/reference\/learn\/programmable-logic\/tutorials\/pmod-ips\/start\">Using Pmod IPs<\/a>\u00a0tutorial and use the <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/Digilent\/vivado-library\/tree\/master\/ip\/Pmods\">PmodMTDS IP core<\/a>. This is the appropriate core to use whether designing with the shield or the Pmod (Pmod coming soon). For more detailed instructions, see the MTDS wiki page, linked above.<\/p>\n<p>For any questions please comment below or visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/forum.digilent.com\/\">Digilent Forum<\/a>\u00a0and post under the add-on boards section.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='watch-action'><div class='watch-position align-left'><div class='action-like'><a class='lbg-style6 like-19195 jlk' data-task='like' data-post_id='19195' data-nonce='5286a1c13f' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Like' \/><span class='lc-19195 lc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><div class='action-unlike'><a class='unlbg-style6 unlike-19195 jlk' data-task='unlike' data-post_id='19195' data-nonce='5286a1c13f' rel='nofollow'><img src='https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/plugins\/wti-like-post-pro\/images\/pixel.gif' title='Unlike' \/><span class='unlc-19195 unlc'>0<\/span><\/a><\/div><\/div> <div class='status-19195 status align-left'>Be the 1st to vote.<\/div><\/div><div class='wti-clear'><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Introducing the Digilent Multi-Touch Display Shield! The Multi-Touch Display Shield is a gorgeous 2.8\u201c touchscreen display with a powerful on-board microcontroller that performs graphics processing tasks. The display is a &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":19206,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,1554],"tags":[1662],"ppma_author":[4491],"class_list":["post-19195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-expansion-modules","category-news","tag-fpga"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/new-Product-Announce-.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":4491,"user_id":26,"is_guest":0,"slug":"talesab","display_name":"Talesa Bleything","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/4ebebd593afbf3d758e9127934708634ab09aeaa7fcfcf6151f4e9ceb9cf6d0e?s=96&d=mm&r=g","1":"","2":"","3":"","4":"","5":"","6":"","7":"","8":"","9":"","10":""}],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/26"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19195"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19195\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19195"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/digilent.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=19195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}