Animation using LED Dot Matrix Display

Everyone is aware of those large high definition displays specifically designed for animated content. We have games and animations based on blu-ray and several other 3D formats. With all these amazing graphic displays, the retro and cute small LED based matrix displays do seem to get disappeared on a large basis but are still favorites among many. Small pocket sized displays that can be used for animating various shapes and display all types of symbols.

One usually sees the LED based displays in the traffic lights but there are no animations, just simple LED instructing us to stop. This project here by Alex Weber under his website tinkerlog certainly takes LED imagination to a bliss level. To display this customized text and animations, one needs to interface this LED matrix display with an AVR. The circuit can be prototyped on a breadboard too!! An 8X8 square matrix along with an AVR is a mono colored arena of imagination and coding.

What strikes with such pocket sized animation circuits is the fact that how simple animation can turn out to be if one wants. There is no need to have gigabytes of memory to process data, no need to have a powerful computer, no need to invest a lot of time and money and no restrictions on the imagination bar too. Express emotions and texts just by using this small circuit.

64pixels from tinkerlog on Vimeo.