Viewing OctoPrint image on screen attached to the Pi?

What is the problem?
Is there an existing help or FAQ topic about setting up to be able to view the OctoPrint interface from the Pi connected to the computer? I've had several people ask me. I've never done it, so am unable to help. (I'd be interested myself, as on occasion I'm at my printer without another device to use to connect.) I'd prefer to start from an installed OctoPi image, and add only those things necessary to make this work in the least resource-hungry manner possible. In fact, if there is a way to do this that only runs and consumes additional resources when I'm actually using that interface on the Pi, that would be great.

What did you already try to solve it?
Searched Help and FAQ sections here. Did not find anything, but it could be I'm just not searching for the right things.

Additional information about your setup (OctoPrint version, OctoPi version, printer, firmware, octoprint.log, serial.log or output on terminal tab, ...)
This is a "generic" request. Most of the folks I am helping are running a Pi 3 and OctoPi 0.15.1 (one is running a Pi 2 and OctoPi 0.14, but would be willing to upgrade if that's what it takes to get this running smoothly).

NOTE: in addition to the solution linked below, OutsourcedGuru came up with an interesting alternate solution in post #3

I think you are asking about using a keyboard mouse and monitor on the pi so you can run the pi desktop gui and a chrome browser to access octoprint on your pi. If that is correct, I just asked that and did that here

In general you need to install the gui desktop and chromium browser, just search those terms.. and of course have a monitor that can use HDMI input and a usb keyboard and mouse.

If it were myself, I would consider adding a second Pi (like a Raspberry Pi Zero W), connect the TFT to that and have it boot up into the Raspbian PIXEL Desktop and auto-load http://octopi.local.

Benefits:

  • I wouldn't be tasking my OctoPi installation to download MPEGs while also being a printer.
  • The cost isn't that much.
  • Each upgrade of OctoPi doesn't involve you re-configuring everything for this side of the picture.
1 Like

@airscapes - thanks. I had read that thread before, but just could not find it again. I was just searching for the wrong terms.

@OutsourcedGuru - that's an interesting idea. I have an extra Pi3 that I could let one of them use to try it out. The Pi 0W is a good option if someone is buying... They already would have the screen and keyboard, just connecting it to a different device.

I am having no issues with the monitor and keyboad on the pi running the desktop and the printer.. I don't slice on the pi.. When you have the browser up it sucks about 1 core.. Can't really run the webcam.. way to slow for that, image is minutes behind.. but put that on a tab and it is no problem to have it set up with a head.