Features

Pi Presents offers an extensive set of features to create interactive multi-media display applications.

Pi Presents is aimed at people who want to build multi-media applications, not computer geeks! No programming is required as it has simple to use editing facilities to  produce applications to meet your exact display requirements. Many templates and examples are provided and there is a comprehensive tutorial style manual.

APPLICATIONS
The applications you can use it for include:

  • Animation or interpretation of museum exhibits by triggering sounds, video, or a slideshow from a button, keyboard, or GPIO inputs.
  • While playing media GPIO outputs can be used to control external devices such as lights, moving machinery, animatronics etc.
  • Multi-media shows for  visitor centre. Images, videos, audio tracks, and messages can be displayed. Repeats can be at intervals or at specified times of day.
  • Allow media shows to be interrupted by the visitor and a menu of alternative shows to be presented.
  • Giving presentations where progress through slides is manually controlled by buttons or keyboard. The presentation may include images, text, audio tracks and videos.
  • Using Liveshow you can dynamically upload image, video or audio tracks over the network for display in a repeating show.
  • Run multiple shows simultaneously so that more than one exhibit can be controlled from one Pi or complex interactive exhibits can be controlled.

Once set up, use of Pi Presents is easy to use and does not require a network:

  • Shows can be prepared using a simple to use browser based editor on the Pi or on other machines on a local network .
  • Will operate on  Raspberry Pi Models 3,4,5
  • No need to modify the Pi’s SD card after initial installation. All media and configuration options can be kept on a removable USB stick. Installing a new application is as simple as inserting the USB stick. Media can  reside inside a profile so that profiles can be made stand alone.
  • Control can be by buttons, PIR, or any source of digital inputs. It is straightforward to make your own controls in a box containing the Pi, or perhaps a wired remote. Alternatively a keyboard can be used.

BLACK BOX OPERATION

Pi Presents, out of the box, runs as a desktop application on the Raspberry Pi using the keyboard for control. However with a little bit of Linux magic, which is fully explained in the manual, it can be made to run as a black box application with control from GPIO. Black box features include:

  • Disabling screen blanking
  • Full screen operation without window decorations
  • Black, coloured or an image as a background behind videos and images
  • Completely headless operation without a keyboard, mouse or buttons (except perhaps a shutdown button if you are not brave)
  • Optional operation with push buttons or PIR through GPIO. Input and output pins are fully configurable.
  • Automatic start up when power is applied to the Pi
  • All media can be on a USB stick or on the SD card
  • Safe shutdown without using  keyboard or mouse
  • Foreign language support.

TRACKS
Near gapless transitions between tracks. The transitions are not seamless but give a much improved feel to shows.

VIDEO/AUDIO PLAYER
Play video tracks using MPV
All MPV formats supported
Interactively pause and stop videos
Choose HDMI, analogue, USB or bluetooth sound
Add a background image and text specific to this track
Display videos in a window or fullscreen
Choose left, right or stereo
Volume of a track can be set.
Simple video playout facilities. Video tracks now have ‘freeze at start’ which give an instant start for video playout applications.

IMAGE PLAYER
Display image ‘tracks’ with pre-defined duration
All GTK4 image formats supported
Add a background image and text specific to this track
Display images in a window or fullscreen

MESSAGE PLAYER
Display multi-line text messages with specified font and colour.
Specify the duration
Add a background image and text specific to this track

BROWSER PLAYER
Play local or remote web pages using the GTK4 browser engine
Use ‘browser commands to play a sequence of pages
Display pages in a window or fullscreen

SHOW TRACKS (SUBSHOWS)
Tracks can be shows so it is possible to select a show to play in addition to a track to play.

SHOWS
MEDIASHOW
Display any type of track in sequence
Repeat sequences at intervals
Trigger a oneshot sequence from keyboard, button, or GPIO input
Advance between tracks automatically and/or using keyboard or buttons
Allow another show (typically a menu) to be selected while playing any track.
Add a background image and text which is the same for all tracks in the show

MENUSHOW
Display a menu of tracks
Control the menu using just three keys Up, Down and Play
Control the menu using keyboard, button, or GPIO input.
Design horizontal or vertical menu layouts using thumbnails, icons and text
Add a background image and text to the menu

LIVESHOW
Display a sequence of tracks
Tracks are taken from pre-defined directories which may be dynamically populated.

RADIOBUTTONSHOW
Select tracks using buttons like the station tuning buttons in a car radio.
The selection screen can play videos, images or audio, or be a show.
Use keys, buttons or GPIO to select the track
Add a background image and text which tells the customer what to select.

HYPERLINKSHOW
A type of show which is behind touchscreens in most museums
Design shows in which pages have hyperlinks like the links in a browser to allow the customer to navigate through pages.
Incorporate Home and Back controls
Incorporate multi-media into pages.
Supports touchscreens with touch sensitive areas which optionally show buttons or legends depending on the requirements of an individual page.

CONCURRENCY
Play two or more shows simultaneously in different parts of the screen or in different displays.
Controls can be disabled for chosen shows (good for audio background tracks).

BLACK BOX OPERATION
Full screen without decorations, disable blanking
Auto-start at power on
Safe shutdown using GPIO buttons
Windowed operation for developing applications

ANIMATION and GPIO
Turn GPIO outputs on or off synchronised with tracks.
Send a timed sequence of GPIO outputs
GPIO is configurable, assign GPIO pins to controls, trigger inputs, or animation outputs.
GPIO inputs have hysteresis and auto-repeat.

SHOW SCHEDULER
Time of day scheduler which will work for any type of show and can vary the schedule by day of the week, day of the month, or special days.

OSC
Remote control system using the Open Sound Control protocol so Pi Presents units can be networked together or Pi Presents can control or be controlled by any other computers supporting OSC, including QLab, IOS and Android.

TOUCHSCREEN
Supports the official Raspberry Pi Touchscreen.

GUI PROFILE EDITOR
Browser based editor which can be run on the local Pi or on other machines on a network.

TRACK PLUGINS
developers can code Python programs that augment the basic capabilities of track players, this includes writing directly to the display and reading values, including text, from input devices.

I/O PLUGINS
The Input/Output device drivers have been separated out from the core of Pi Presents and have a defined API so that I/O plugins can be written for new devices. The provided plugins for the more complex devices demonstrate the techniques for these devices, but these may require modification for your own devices:

  • keyboard
  • GPIO, including RPi Model 5
  • Direct linking of GPIO input and output to allow LED indicators on buttons
  • enhanced keyboard allowing strings to trigger events and be read by track plugins
  • Wireless remote controls and other input devices that use evdev (specially OSMC remote)
  • UART (through USB) for RS232 interface and projector control
  • Pimoroni Four Letter Phat via I2C
  • Pimorini ScrollHD Phat via I2C
  • ADC via I2C
  • DAC via I2C
  • PN532 based RFID tag readers
  • DRV2605 Haptic motor driver

OTHER FEATURES
Counters – use Show Control commands to increment the value of counters. These can be read by track plugins and allows interactive quizzes to be implemented. The enhanced keyboard I/O plugin allows strings to be entered so that answers need not be multiple choice.
Statistics logging Browser based manager for remote management of Pi Presents, running applications, editing, uploading and downloading profiles (end of life)
Pi Presents can send email alerts when it starts, exits, or detects an error