Inkdrop

An evolution of SlowMovie: an e-paper screen that plays a film frame by frame, π-piquant drawings or photos, controlled remotely.

Inkdrop is a project derived from Tom Whitwell’s SlowMovie: a film played very slowly, frame by frame, on an e-paper screen connected to a Raspberry Pi. The idea and the base code come from SlowMovie (MIT licence); Inkdrop adds three display modes, only one active at a time, chosen from a web page: the film as in the original, random π-piquant drawings built from the decimals of π (requested from the π-piquant API), or random photos from a Google Photos album (share link, unofficial method), renewed at a regular interval. In every mode you can also send an image from a phone or a computer, with an optional caption and a duration: it replaces the display for the chosen time, then the display resumes, thanks to a password-protected queue and a small web relay (the Pi opens no port). The Pi is controlled remotely (film, start and end points to skip the credits, subtitles, settings), with a single sign-in and settings specific to each mode. On top of that come a keyboard-driven terminal interface and simpler ways to add films (drag and drop into a network share, or a command).

Based on SlowMovie

Last commit: October 20, 2026