Graphical User Interfaces for i.MX RT1176

The ground-breaking performance of the i.MX RT1176 crossover MCU allows you to create advanced multimedia GUI and HMI applications. There are 2D graphics acceleration (PXP) as well as an OpenVG™ vector graphics accelerator that runs up to 500 MHz.

Embedded Artists has ports available for several great graphical frameworks, see the list below.
It does not get any easier than this – you will be up-and-running with your graphics development immediately!

Our iMX RT1176 Developer’s Kit gives you the option to select between several displays and resolutions when evaluating/prototyping your graphical application. You do not need to build a prototype with the final display to get started. Just select the resolution that is close to what is planned – and get started immediately!

  • NXP’s RK055HDMIPI4MA0 5.5 inch MIPI-DSI display: 720x1280px (portrait orientation) or 1280x720px (landscape orientation) with capacitive touch
  • HDMI 720x480px / 800x480px / 1024x768px / 1280x720px: use the included MIPI-DSI to HDMI bridge to get a picture on your desktop HDMI display.

Embedded Wizard


“Embedded Wizard is a professional technology to create graphical user interfaces (GUIs) that easily adopt the user experience of smartphones with astonishingly fast animations, gorgeous graphics and smart effects.”

Getting Started
See these documents for a detailed tutorial that outlines all necessary steps to create an Embedded Wizard UI application.
https://doc.embedded-wizard.de/getting-started-imxrt1176-ucom-pxp (using the 2D PXP accelerator)
https://doc.embedded-wizard.de/getting-started-imxrt1176-ucom-vglite (using the 2D OpenVG™ accelerator)

More information
https://www.embedded-wizard.de/
For an excellent introduction to Embedded Wizard, see here.

Qt for MCUs


“Qt for MCUs is a complete graphics framework and toolkit with everything you need to design, develop, and deploy GUIs on microcontrollers.”

Demo
We have an archive with pre-complied demos (binary images) that can be downloaded from http://imx.embeddedartists.com/#imxrt1176.
This document (Qt for MCUs – Prebuilt Binaries) contains a tutorial over the pre-compiled demo images and include an instruction how to program them to the iMX RT1176 Developer’s Kit.

Getting Started
To start your own program development with Qt for MCUs, download our Qt for MCUs – Program Development tutorial.
Another useful document is our general iMX RT Program Development Guide.

More information
https://www.qt.io/product/develop-software-microcontrollers-mcu
https://www.qt.io/microcontrollers-nxp

LVGL


“LVGL is an open-source graphics library providing everything you need to create embedded GUIs with easy-to-use graphical elements, beautiful visual effects and low memory footprint.”

Getting Started
LVGL is integrated into the MCUXpresso SDK for the i.MX RT1176 MCU. Follow the instructions in the Program Development Guide for how to install the SDK. Once installed, import SDK examples as described in the document. Examples using LVGL are located under littlevgl_examples.

More information
https://lvgl.io/
Information from NXP

Crank Software


“Accelerating Tomorrow’s Embedded Experiences – Crank Software is a software and service-based company that have extensive GUI design and development experience. They provide the tool Storyboard that lets you develop User Interfaces for your product.”

Getting Started
The SDK examples require more than the 32 MByte SDRAM that our iMX RT1176 uCOM board has. It is possible to get started by modifying the SDK examples, reducing the SDRAM requirement.
To test the SDK demos you have to use NXP’s iMX RT1176 EVK and download this demo image: https://info.cranksoftware.com/platforms/demo-images/nxp/imx-rt1170

More information
https://www.cranksoftware.com/

emWin


“NXP has partnered with SEGGER Microcontroller to offer their graphics library emWin in binary form.”

Getting Started
The library and example code is included in the MCUXpresso SDK. Follow the instructions in the Program Development Guide for how to install the SDK. Once installed, import SDK examples as described in the document. Examples using LVGL are located under emwin_examples.

More information
Information from Segger
Information from NXP