# Stream bitmaps from PC to RPi for display

**URL:** <https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [July 21, 2022, 10:09am UTC](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548 "2022-07-21T10:09:05Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Jeffrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Jeffrey](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/u/Jeffrey)\
**Post date:** [July 21, 2022, 10:09am UTC](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548/1 "2022-07-21T10:09:05Z")

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As the complexity of my project has grown, I am now considering the possibility of switching from drawing and rendering my panel outputs directly on the Raspberry Pi, to rendering a sequence of bitmaps on a server which are streamed to the Pi for display.

Possible benefits of this are:

- The Pi is now only driving the display and its CPU burden is reduced.
- I can use the C++ library for rendering instead of Python, and get the performance improvements therein.
- I can write the bitmap drawing code in whichever language I like, rather than one of the API supported languages.

My display is 64x128 and I’m aiming for 15-30fps, low latency.

Before I start trying to mangle the image-viewer example into receiving and decoding bitmap streams from the network, I wondered if there is an easier/pre-tested way of doing this. I get the feeling that using the image sequence pre-processor would be a good idea so I would imagine the dataflow to be something like this:

[Server]MyCanvasDrawingProg-\>[pipe]-\>RPI-RGB-LED-MatrixPreProcessor-\>[network]-\>[RaspberryPi]ApiImageViewer

I’m not looking for anyone to do my homework for me, just any suggestions or pointers in the right direction.

Thank you.

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**Author:** ![ccoenen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/74df32/32.png) [@ccoenen](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/u/ccoenen)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2022, 7:00am UTC](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548/2 "2022-07-31T07:00:17Z")

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Have you already looked at [GitHub - hzeller/flaschen-taschen: Noisebridge Flaschen Taschen display](https://github.com/hzeller/flaschen-taschen) ? It may be close to what you described.

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**Author:** ![raspberry.pi.maker](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/free1/user_avatar/rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/raspberry.pi.maker/32/138_2.png) [@raspberry.pi.maker](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/u/raspberry.pi.maker)\
**Post date:** [August 22, 2022, 4:09pm UTC](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548/3 "2022-08-22T16:09:59Z")

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Hi

For a similar need, I used a network to segment an image and send it to multiple Rpis to make a large LED display.

This is my blog about this topic. Maybe it can help you with your homework.

> **[LED - 7. Distrbuted display system for very large RGB LED matrices](https://iot-for-maker.blogspot.com/2020/03/led-7-distrbuted-display-system-for.html)**
>
> So far I've covered a lot of blogs that mainly use Raspberry Pi + RGB Matrix HAT. The reason is that the display content can be handled free...

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**Author:** ![Jeffrey](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Jeffrey](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/u/Jeffrey)\
**Post date:** [August 31, 2022, 7:17pm UTC](https://rpi-rgb-led-matrix.discourse.group/t/stream-bitmaps-from-pc-to-rpi-for-display/548/4 "2022-08-31T19:17:56Z")

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@ccoenen  
This is exactly the kind of thing I was looking for.

Thank you.