Torch Bearer Spectrometer UI

Problem statement

Ever since starting the Reversing Philips Hue light driver journey, I’ve been missing a reasonable spectrometer.

As luck would have it, Hackaday ran a Software Hacks Unlock Cheap Spectrometer article a while back. So I ordered one.

But the original UI (while pretty) was… well, basic¹:

original UI from ZoidTechnology

You don’t have to squint hard to notice the lack of any spectrometer-related controls.

You could one-shot capture spectrum, but that was about it.

I set out to change that².

Solution

Knowing nothing about the Colour Science package (or Matplotlib for that matter), I asked Mr. Claude about initial directions. After some coercing, I was able to get basic “custom button on the toolbar” functionality etc.

As I dove deeper, I dropped the AI help, and did it the old-fashioned way³.

In the end, I figured I wanted:

• Raw data export (for later analysis)
• Control over exposure mode
• Auto-refresh and one-shot mode
• Multiple graph types
• Keyboard control
• Quit button ;)

Well, would you look at that⁴:

pretty graph

quick graph

CIE1931 graph

I needed to add the quick graph mode, because the pretty graph takes about 0.5s to render on my machine, which is problematic for lower exposures with auto-refresh. :)

Closing words

The whole result is available as gh:wejn/tobes-ui, pull requests welcome.

I hope I’ve done a reasonable job with the README file there.

Anyway, I’m off to measure some spectral distributions. ;)

1. And I don’t do Android. Or windows. ↩

2. Originally as a pull-request, but then I gave up waiting. ↩

3. Lots of elbow grease. Not so glamorous, way more deterministic. ↩

4. Yes, when someone like me does icons, they’re screwy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ↩