Smartdisplay

Smartdisplay is a personal DIY project aimed at creating a smart display that showcases pictures from a network storage. The project consists of a server component, which provides an endpoint to serve pictures, and a client component, which displays these pictures on a screen.

Overview

Python Server

The server component is responsible for serving pictures from a network storage. It provides an endpoint that the client can use to fetch the pictures. The server is built using Python and can be set up using Ansible scripts provided in the repository.

Godot Client

The Godot client is a graphical application that displays the pictures fetched from the server. It is built using the Godot game engine and includes various scenes and scripts to manage slide transitions, animations and user input. The client can be configured to connect to the server and display the pictures on a screen.

In my personal setup, the Godot Client is running on a Raspberry Pi with Touchscreen.

Drawbacks

Please note there is no kind of authentication implemented in Python Server, furtermore it's running with Flask internal Development Server without using an external Application Server. Ensure to only run this in a secure environment.

Assets

Due to licensing issues, I didn't add any assets to the repository. Most of used assets are created by LimeZu.

Requirements

To run this project, you will need the following:

Server

• Python 3
• Ansible
• A bunch of picture to show

Client (build & run Ansible)

• Godot Engine 4.3 or higher
• Existing Ansible setup with inventory

Client (run Smartdisplay)

• A device to run the client (e.g. Raspberry Pi with Touchscreen)

Setup

On your Workstation

1. Clone this repository and cd into it.

2. Add server or group with name smartdisplay_server for target server and smartdisplay_godot_client for target client.

Building the Godot Client (on your Workstation)

1. Open the project in the Godot editor.

2. Go to Project -> Export....

3. Click on Add... to create a new export preset if needed.

4. Configure the export settings for your target platform (e.g., Linux, Windows, etc.).

5. Set the necessary options for the export preset, such as the output path and executable name. Output path must be ansible/roles/install-godot-client/files/smartdisplay.arm32 to export the binary to the correct folder.

6. Click on Export Project to build the client.

Run Ansible (on your Workstation)

1. Edit ansible/roles/install-server/vars/main.yml and adapt smartdisplay_client_path if you would like to change installation directory.

2. Copy and edit the sample configuration files:

   cp ansible/roles/install-server/vars/main_sample.yml ansible/roles/install-server/vars/main.yml
   cp ansible/roles/install-server/files/picture_paths_sample.txt ansible/roles/install-server/files/picture_paths.txt

3. Edit main.yml and picture_paths.txt to match your setup.

4. Run the Ansible playbook to set up the server and client:

   ansible-playbook -i /path/to/your/ansible/inventory ansible/ansible_playbook.yml

On your Server

1. cd into your installation directory.

2. Create a virtual environment:

   python3 -m venv .venv

3. Activate the virtual environment:

   source .venv/bin/activate

4. Install the required Python packages:

   pip3 install -r requirements.txt

5. Start the server:

   python3 server.py

Running the Client

1. Run the binary (default: /usr/local/bin/smartdisplay.arm32) once and close it again using ESC.

2. This will create default config file in Godot app userdata directory. See Godot docs for details, in my case it's located at

   ~/.local/share/godot/app_userdata/smartdisplay-godot-client/smartdisplay.cfg
   

3. Open smartdisplay.cfg and update picture_provider_url in section [Smartdisplay].

4. That's it! Run the application and enjoy your pictures.

Old versions

• archive/version2: This version is basically just a python script which provides an endpoint to provide pictures and an HTML file which is using this endpoint to show pictures.
• archive/version1: This version is using quite a lot of technologie to implement such a simple thing like a smart display. I'm not using it anymore, but it was fun to create it and learn all those things.
• There were earlier versions available but those have never been published.