3.6.1. Introduction¶

TI SOCs like AM335x, AM437x, AM57xx and AM65xx are enabled with 3D cores, capable of accelerating 3D operations with dedicated hardware. The dedicated hardware is based on SGX series of devices from Imagination Technologies. The graphics cores only accelerate graphics operations, and do not perform video decode operations. For video acceleration, refer to respective Technical Reference Manuals for the SOCs.

Below table lists the various TI families supported by this SDK, and the SGX core information

Table: TI System on Chips, and SGX cores

The SGX cores in AM family support OpenGL® ES 1.1 and OpenGL® ES 2.0 APIs.

The OpenGL® ES and EGL® libraries are packaged with the Processor SDK Linux and are used by graphics stacks such as Wayland/Weston. The drivers run on an ARM core and programs the firmware running inside a GPU core with rendering commands submitted by the user applications.

The rest of this page will cover the following topics:

• Software architecture of Graphics
• Instructions on how to run graphics demos
• Instructions on how to run DSS application
• Instructions on how launch Weston
• Instructions on how to run PVR tools
• SoC Performance Monitoring Tools
• QT and GTK+ graphics frameworks
• Migration Guide
• AM3 Beagle Bone Black Board Configuration
• SGX Debugging Tips

3.6.2. Software Architecture¶

The picture below shows the software architecture of Graphics in Processor SDK Linux.

Fig. 3.1 Graphics Software Stack

3.6.3. Graphics Demos¶

Along with the graphics driver and userspace libraries, the SDK also includes example applications. Some of the demos are based on the IMG Native_SDK examples.

Demos via Maritx

The following 3D Graphics demos are available via Matrix. The table below provides a list of these demos, with a brief description.

Running demos in Null Window system mode

The graphics demos can also be run in null-window system mode outside of Wayland windowing system as full screen applications. In order to do so, exit Weston by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Backspace from the keyboard which connects to the EVM. Then, if the LCD screen stays in “Please wait...”, press Ctrl-Alt-F1 to go to the command line on LCD console. After that, the command line can be used from serial console, SSH console, or LCD console.

Please make sure the board is connected to at least one display before running these demos.

target # /usr/bin/SGX/demos/DRM/OGLES2Coverflow
target # /usr/bin/SGX/demos/DRM/OGLES2ChameleonMan
target # /usr/bin/SGX/demos/DRM/OGLES2ExampleUI
target # /usr/bin/SGX/demos/DRM/OGLES2Navigation

After you see the output on the display interface, hit q to terminate the application.

Some of the demos under null windowing system require the user to pass in the drm connector id. For information on how to get connector id please refer to the Display section.

3.6.4. Display¶

TI SoC’s are equipped with Display SubSystem (DSS) hardware to provide hardware acceleration for alpha blending of overlays and color conversion. The DSS hardware is exposed to the software drm API available through libdrm module. Through this drm interface, a user space program can perform mode setting of the display.

The drm module models the display hardware as a series of abstract hardware blocks and manages them through the API. The blocks are:

• CRTC[1]: represents a scanout engine that generates video timing signal from the data pointed to by the scanout buffer
• Connector: represents where the video timing signal is sent across to the display
• Encoder: transforms the video timing signal from CRTC to a format that is suitable for sending across the connector
• Plane: represents the overlay buffer that a CRTC can be fed with

A utility application modetest can be used to get the list of available drm blocks. All the information available for the device can be displayed by using it.

target #  modetest -c

Connectors:
id      encoder status          type    size (mm)       modes   encoders
4       3       connected       HDMI-A  480x270         20      3
  modes:
        name refresh (Hz) hdisp hss hse htot vdisp vss vse vtot)
  1920x1080 60 1920 2008 2052 2200 1080 1084 1089 1125 flags: phsync, pvsync; type: preferred, driver
...
16      15      connected       unknown 0x0             1       15
  modes:
        name refresh (Hz) hdisp hss hse htot vdisp vss vse vtot)
  800x480 60 800 1010 1040 1056 480 502 515 525 flags: nhsync, nvsync; type: preferred, driver

target #  modetest -p

Planes:
id      crtc    fb      CRTC x,y        x,y     gamma size
19      0       0       0,0             0,0     0
 formats: RG16 RX12 XR12 RA12 AR12 XR15 AR15 RG24 RX24 XR24 RA24 AR24 NV12 YUYV UYVY
 props:
 ...
20      0       0       0,0             0,0     0
 formats: RG16 RX12 XR12 RA12 AR12 XR15 AR15 RG24 RX24 XR24 RA24 AR24 NV12 YUYV UYVY
 props:
 ...

target # kmscube

target # kmscube -c <connector-id>
target # kmscube -c 16 #For example, the connector id for secondary display is 16.

target # kmscube -a

target #  modetest

target #  drmclone -l <lcd_w>x<lcd_h> -p <plane_w>x<plane_h>:<x>+<y> -h <hdmi_w>x<hdmi_h>

e.g.: target # drmclone -l 1280x800 -p 320x240:0+0 -h 640x480

target # drmextended -l <lcd_w>x<lcd_h> -p <plane_w>x<plane_h>:<x>+<y> -h <hdmi_w>x<hdmi_h>

e.g.: target # drmextended -l 1280x800 -p 320x240:0+0 -h 640x480

target # drmzalpha -s <crtc_w>x<crtc_h> -w <plane1_id>:<z_val>:<glo_alpha>:<pre_mul_alpha> -w <plane2_id>:<z_val>:<glo_alpha>:<pre_mul_alpha>

e.g.: target # drmzalpha -s 1280x800 -w 19:1:255:1 -w 20:2:255:1

3.6.5. Wayland/Weston¶

The supported Wayland/Weston version brings in the multiple display support in extended desktop mode and the ability to drag-and-drop windows from one display to the other.

To launch Weston, do the following:

On the target console:

target # unset WAYLAND_DISPLAY

On the default display:

target # weston --tty=1 --connector=<default connector-id>

On the secondary display:

target # weston --tty=1 --connector=<secondary connector-id>

On all connected displays (LCD and HDMI):

target # weston --tty=1

By default, the screensaver timeout is configured to 300 seconds. The user can change the screensaver timeout using a command line option:

--idle-time=<number of seconds>

For example, to set timeout of 10 minutes and Weston configured to display on all connectors, use the below command:

weston --tty=1 --idle-time=600

To disable the screen timeout and to configure Weston to display on all connectors, use the below command:

weston --tty=1 --idle-time=0

If you face any issues with the above procedure, please refer GLSDK_FAQs#Unable_to_run_Weston_on_the_GLSDK_release for troubling shooting tips.

The filesystem comes with a preconfigured weston.ini file which will be located in

/etc/weston.ini

# /usr/bin/weston-flower
# /usr/bin/weston-clickdot
# /usr/bin/weston-cliptest
# /usr/bin/weston-dnd
# /usr/bin/weston-editor
# /usr/bin/weston-eventdemo
# /usr/bin/weston-image /usr/share/weston/terminal.png
# /usr/bin/weston-resizor
# /usr/bin/weston-simple-egl
# /usr/bin/weston-simple-shm
# /usr/bin/weston-simple-touch
# /usr/bin/weston-smoke
# /usr/bin/weston-info
# /usr/bin/weston-terminal

target # gst-launch-1.0 playbin uri=file://<path-to-file-name> video-sink=waylandsink

[core]
shell=ivi-shell.so
modules=ivi-controller.so

[ivi-shell]
ivi-input-module=ivi-input-controller.so

target# /etc/init.d/weston stop
target# /etc/init.d/weston start

target# weston-simple-shm &

target# layer-add-surfaces -l 1000 -s 2 &

layer-add-surfaces: surface (10507) created
layer-add-surfaces: surface (10507) configured with:
    dst region: x:0 y:0 w:250 h:250
    src region: x:0 y:0 w:250 h:250
    visibility: TRUE
    added to layer (1000)
layer-add-surfaces: surface (10507) configured with:
    dst region: x:0 y:0 w:250 h:250
    src region: x:0 y:0 w:250 h:250
    visibility: TRUE
    added to layer (1000)

target# weston-flower &

target# LayerManagerControl set surface 10507 destination region 150 150 300 300
target# LayerManagerControl set surface 10507 opacity 0.5
target# LayerManagerControl set surface 10507 visibility 1

target# LayerManagerControl  help

export QT\_WAYLAND\_SHELL\_INTEGRATION=ivi-shell

3.6.6. Using the PowerVR Tools¶

The suite of PowerVR Tools is designed to enable rapid graphics application development. It targets a range of areas including asset exporting and optimization, PC emulation, prototyping environments, on-line and off-line performance analysis tools and many more. Please refer to PowerVR-SDK for additional details on the tools and detailed documentation.

The target file system includes a subset of PowerVR tools such as PVRScope and PVRTrace recorder libraries from Imagination PowerVR SDK to profile and trace SGX activities. In addition, it also includes PVRPerfServerDeveloper tool.

target # /opt/img-powervr-sdk/PVRHub/PVRPerfServer/PVRPerfServerDeveloper

target # cp /opt/img-powervr-sdk/PVRHub/Scripts/start_tracing.sh ~/.
target # ./start_tracing.sh <log-filename> <application-to-be-traced>

target # ./start_tracing.sh westonapp weston-simple-egl