Hey everyone,
I’ve just released two new open-source projects aimed at folks using Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico 2 with 256×64 grayscale OLED displays based on the SSD1322 controller.
The main one is PicoGFX_SSD1322, an Arduino library that brings full Adafruit_GFX compatibility to SSD1322 displays, but with heavy optimizations specifically for the Pico (RP2040) and Pico 2 (RP2350). It’s a fork of the original Adafruit SSD1327 library (for their 128×128 grayscale OLEDs), which was adapted in 2021 by venice1200 for the SSD1322’s 256×64 resolution and 16-level grayscale. I then renamed it PicoGFX_SSD1322 and added Pico-specific high-performance features in 2026.
The big win here is non-blocking DMA SPI transfers using Earle F. Philhower III’s excellent Arduino-Pico core. This lets the display update in the background via the Pico’s DMA hardware without blocking the CPU at all—your sketch can keep running other code (sensor reading, inputs, calculations, etc.) while the screen refreshes smoothly at high frame rates. This is huge for real-time stuff like games, animations, UI dashboards, or anything where you want tear-free updates and responsive behavior. It also includes double-buffering, dirty rectangle optimization to send only changed areas, and a completion callback for async handling.
To go along with it, I built 4BitTrix as a simple companion GUI tool. It converts normal images into the exact 4bpp grayscale bitmap format (.h files) that PicoGFX expects for its custom draw4bppBitmap() function (both PROGMEM and RAM versions).
Both projects are here on GitHub: https://github.com/TheHappyGrey
I’d really appreciate any feedback, bug reports, suggestions, or if you give them a try on your Pico projects. Let me know how it goes!
Cheers!
I’ve just released two new open-source projects aimed at folks using Raspberry Pi Pico or Pico 2 with 256×64 grayscale OLED displays based on the SSD1322 controller.
The main one is PicoGFX_SSD1322, an Arduino library that brings full Adafruit_GFX compatibility to SSD1322 displays, but with heavy optimizations specifically for the Pico (RP2040) and Pico 2 (RP2350). It’s a fork of the original Adafruit SSD1327 library (for their 128×128 grayscale OLEDs), which was adapted in 2021 by venice1200 for the SSD1322’s 256×64 resolution and 16-level grayscale. I then renamed it PicoGFX_SSD1322 and added Pico-specific high-performance features in 2026.
The big win here is non-blocking DMA SPI transfers using Earle F. Philhower III’s excellent Arduino-Pico core. This lets the display update in the background via the Pico’s DMA hardware without blocking the CPU at all—your sketch can keep running other code (sensor reading, inputs, calculations, etc.) while the screen refreshes smoothly at high frame rates. This is huge for real-time stuff like games, animations, UI dashboards, or anything where you want tear-free updates and responsive behavior. It also includes double-buffering, dirty rectangle optimization to send only changed areas, and a completion callback for async handling.
To go along with it, I built 4BitTrix as a simple companion GUI tool. It converts normal images into the exact 4bpp grayscale bitmap format (.h files) that PicoGFX expects for its custom draw4bppBitmap() function (both PROGMEM and RAM versions).
Both projects are here on GitHub: https://github.com/TheHappyGrey
I’d really appreciate any feedback, bug reports, suggestions, or if you give them a try on your Pico projects. Let me know how it goes!
Cheers!
Statistics: Posted by TheHappyGrey — Mon Jan 05, 2026 12:46 pm — Replies 0 — Views 55