Getting started with Espressif: ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board
ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board
The following article explains all necessary steps to create an Embedded Wizard UI application suitable for the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board from Espressif.
Please follow these instructions carefully and step by step in order to ensure that you will get everything up and running on your target. In case you are not familiar with Embedded Wizard, please read first the chapter basic concepts and the Quick Tour tutorial to understand the principles of Embedded Wizard and the GUI development workflow.
Prerequisites
Although you can combine the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board with some other display pannesl, we highly recommend to start first with the following hardware components in order to ensure that you get the entire software up and running. As soon as you have your first UI application working on the recommended environment, you can start porting to your desired display.
First, make sure you have all of the following items:
Hardware components
★ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board from Espressif
★USB cable to connect the board with your PC
Software components
★Embedded Wizard Studio
You can download Embedded Wizard Studio directly from the following link:
EmbeddedWizard_Studio_x64-V15.00.msi
Customers can also find all their licensed software packages in the Embedded Wizard Download Center (login required).
★Embedded Wizard Build Environment for ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board
You can download the suitable Build Environment from the following link:
ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board-BuildEnvironment-V15.00.00.00.zip
Customers can also find the latest version of the Build Environment and their licensed Platform Package source codes in the Embedded Wizard Download Center (login required).
Installing Tools and Software
The following description assumes that you are familiar with ESP32-P4 software development and that you have installed the ESP32 toolchain for Windows.
IMPORTANT
Before starting the GUI development with Embedded Wizard, please make sure to have the ESP32 software development environment (ESP-IDF) installed and first applications running on your ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board. Please follow the ESP32-S3 Get Started documentation from Espressif.
Please make sure that the ESP-IDF installation path (IDF_PATH) does not contain any space characters - otherwise building examples will fail.
★Step 1: Install the latest version of Embedded Wizard Studio.
★Step 2: Unpack the provided Embedded Wizard Build Environment for ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board to your \esp development directory (e.g. C:\ESP32\esp\ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board).
Embedded Wizard GUI Demos
If you just want to run our GUI demos on your ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board without building the different examples, you can simply flash the binary file of the Embedded Wizard Master Demo.
The Embedded Wizard Master Demo combines a variety of examples within one huge demo application. It can be used for presentations and showcases. Each demo application can be activated from a common main menu. To return back from a demo application to the main menu, a small home button appears on top of every demo. Additionally, the Master Demo contains an auto-demo mode that presents one demo application after the other. The auto-demo starts automatically and stops as soon as the user touches the screen.
In order to flash the binary file to your target, please follow these steps:
★Connect your development board with your PC via USB (make sure to use the USB-UART connector).
★Open a ESP-IDF PowerShell console (with all necessary settings for building an ESP-IDF project) and navigate to the directory of the Master Demo within the Build Environment \esp\ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board\main\MasterDemo.
★Flash the MasterDemo by starting the following script:
python FlashMasterDemo.py
'Master Demo' running on ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board.
Exploring the Build Environment
The provided Embedded Wizard Build Environment for ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board contains everything you need to create an Embedded Wizard UI application for the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board. After unpacking, you will find the following subdirectories and files within \esp\ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board\main:
•\Application\GeneratedCode - This folder is used to receive the generated code from an Embedded Wizard UI project. The template project is building the UI application out of this folder. You can create your own UI project and generate the code into the subdirectory \GeneratedCode without the need to adapt the project.
•\Application\Source - This folder contains the files main.c and ewmain.c. There you will find the initialization of the system and the main loop to drive an Embedded Wizard GUI application. The file ewconfig.h contains general configuration settings for the target system, like memory ranges and display parameter and configuration settings for the Embedded Wizard Graphics Engine and Runtime Environment. Additionally, this folder contains the device driver C/H files used for the DeviceIntegration example.
•\Examples\<ScreenSize> - This folder contains a set of demo applications prepared for a dedicated screen size (1024x600 pixel). Each example is stored in a separate folder containing the entire Embedded Wizard UI project. Every project contains the necessary profile settings for the ESP32 target. For a complete overview and detailed descriptions of all available examples, including their features and usage, see Examples.
•\MasterDemo - This folder contains the binary file of the Embedded Wizard Master Demo application and a script file to flash the demo on your target. The Master Demo combines a variety of examples within one huge demo application. It can be used for presentations and showcases.
•\PlatformPackage - This folder contains the necessary source codes and/or libraries of the ESP32 Platform Package: Several Graphics Engines for the supported color format RGB565 and the Runtime Environment (in the subdirectory \RTE).
•\TargetSpecific - This folder contains all configuration files and platform specific source codes. The different ew_bsp_xxx files implement the bridge between the Embedded Wizard UI application and the underlying board support package (ESP hardware drivers) in order to access the display.
Creating the UI Examples
For the first bring up of your system, we recommend to use the example 'HelloWorld':
Example 'HelloWorld' within Embedded Wizard Studio.
The following steps are necessary to generate the source code of this sample application:
★Navigate to the directory \main\Examples\<ScreenSize>\HelloWorld.
★Open the project file HelloWorld.ewp with your previously installed Embedded Wizard Studio. The entire project is well documented inline. You can run the UI application within the Prototyper by pressing Ctrl+F5.
★To start the code generator, select the menu items - or simply press F8. Embedded Wizard Studio generates now the sources files of the example project into the directory \main\Application\GeneratedCode.
Compiling, Linking and Flashing
The following steps are necessary to build and flash the Embedded Wizard UI sample application using the ESP-IDF toolchain:
★Open a console (with all necessary settings for building an ESP-IDF project) and navigate to the top level of the Build Environment \esp\ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board.
★If you want to change or inspect the current settings, please insert:
idf.py menuconfig
★Start compiling and linking:
idf.py build
★Now you can flash the application (by using the appropriate COM port):
idf.py flash
★In order to get outputs from the application and to provide key inputs, start the monitor:
idf.py monitor
If everything works as expected, the application should be built and flashed to the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board.
Example 'HelloWorld' running on ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board.
All other examples can be created in the same way: Just open the desired example with Embedded Wizard Studio, generate code and rebuild the whole application using simply:
idf.py build idf.py flash idf.py monitor
Creating your own UI Applications
In order to create your own UI project suitable for the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board, you can create a new project and select the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board project template:
As a result you get a new Embedded Wizard project, that contains the necessary Profile attributes suitable for the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board:
The following profile settings are important for your target:
★The attribute PlatformPackage should refer to the ESP32 Platform Package. The supported color format is RGB565.
★The attribute ScreenSize should correspond to the display size of the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board.
★The attributes ModeOfBitmapResources and ModeOfStringConstants should be set to Compressed. This ensures that resources are loaded into the RAM.
★The attribute OutputDirectory should refer to the \main\Application\GeneratedCode directory within your Build Environment. By using this template, it will be very easy to build the UI project for your target.
★The attribute CleanOutputDirectories should be set to true to ensure that unused source code within the output directory \main\Application\GeneratedCode will be deleted.
Now you can use the template project in the same manner as it was used for the provided examples to compile, link and flash the binary.
After generating code, please follow these steps, in order to build your own UI application:
★Start compiling, linking and flashing:
idf.py build idf.py flash idf.py monitor
Most of the project settings are taken directly out of the generated code, like the color format or the screen orientation. All other settings can be made directly within the file ewconfig.h, which contains general configuration settings for the target system.
Console output
In order to receive error messages or to display simple debug or trace messages from your Embedded Wizard UI application, a serial terminal like 'Putty' or 'TeraTerm' should be used or the monitor that is started together with idf.py monitor
During a successful application startup, the console displays the following information:
Initialize Display... [OK] Initialize Touch Driver... [OK] Allocate Memory Pool... [OK] Initialize Memory Manager... [OK] Initialize Platform Package... [OK] Initialize Invocation Queue... [OK] Create Embedded Wizard Root Object... [OK] Create Embedded Wizard Viewport... [OK] Starting Embedded Wizard main loop - press <p> to shutdown application... --------------------------------------------- Embedded Wizard System Info --------------------------------------------- Target system ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board Color format RGB565 Build Environment version V15.00.00.00 Runtime Environment (RTE) version V15.00 Graphics Engine (GFX) version V15.00 MemoryPool address 0x48258D80 MemoryPool size 8388608 bytes Framebuffer address 0x48000AC0 Doublebuffer address 0x4812CB00 Display size 1024 x 600 Framebuffer size 1024 x 600 Surface rotation 0 EwScreenSize 1024 x 600 Graphics accelerator none Warp function support enabled Vector graphics support enabled Gradients support enabled Blur support enabled Mask support enabled Tint support enabled Bidirectional text support enabled Compression support enabled Index8 bitmap resource support enabled RGB565 bitmap resource support enabled Native bitmap resource support enabled Max surface cache size 16384 bytes Glyph cache size 256 x 256 Max issue tasks 240 Operating system FreeRTOS Toolchain GCC C-Compiler version 14.2.0 Build date and time Nov 22 2025, 19:34:13 ---------------------------------------------
This terminal connection can be used for all trace statements from your Embedded Wizard UI applications or for all debug messages from your C code.
Release notes
The following section contains the version history of the Build Environment (including Graphics Engine and Runtime Environment) for the ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board. These release notes describe only the platform specific aspects - for all general improvements and enhancements please see the Embedded Wizard release notes.
Version 15.00.00.00
★Initial support of ESP32-P4-Function-EV-Board with PPA hardware acceleration.
★Using ESP-IDF V5.5.1 (stable).