OSD Lab · Guide

OSD Lab guide

Your own Betaflight OSD font, in six steps

OSD Lab makes a complete custom OSD font for Betaflight: the letters, the icons, a boot logo, your logo in flight and a crosshair. It writes the analog .mcm font for MAX7456 and AT7456E flight controllers, and colour fonts for HDZero, Walksnail Avatar and DJI goggles with WTFOS. Every change shows straight away on a real DVR frame, with Betaflight’s own screens drawn on top where the firmware puts them. It’s free, there’s no account, and nothing you make leaves your browser.

Open OSD LabPixel editor

The six steps

  1. 01Letters

    Betaflight’s stock letters, FlightOne’s FalcoX and 2018 fonts, ten more, or your own TTF, OTF or WOFF file. Then the size and an edge: outline, round, shadow or bevel.

  2. 02Icons

    One style for the battery, RSSI, link quality, satellites, throttle and the rest. Then click any icon on the preview to swap just that one, for another set’s, a generated battery gauge or your own picture, which can also be the battery gauge or the home arrow.

  3. 03Boot logo

    The 288×72 picture Betaflight shows for four seconds when you plug in a battery: any image, your callsign, or both.

  4. 04Badge

    Your logo on screen in flight. It’s drawn into characters Betaflight never uses and shown through the craft name, plus the pilot name for a second row. OSD Lab works out how many characters it needs and writes the CLI lines.

  5. 05Crosshair

    Thickness, outline, gap, dot and ring, like the crosshair settings in a shooter. Start from a preset or a random one, and share it as a link.

  6. 06Finish

    Download the .mcm for Betaflight Configurator or flash it over USB from the lab. For digital goggles, save the files to the SD card or download a ZIP. Then copy the CLI lines. The .mcm keeps your settings: open it here later to change the font again.

Put it on an analog quad

  1. In Betaflight Configurator, open the OSD tab, then Font Manager, Load font file and Upload font.
  2. Or flash it from OSD Lab: Chrome or Edge on a computer, Configurator closed, flight controller on USB (plus a battery if the OSD needs it), then Flash over USB.
  3. Unplug and replug the battery to see the new font.

Put it on HDZero, Walksnail or DJI

  • HDZero: copy the resource folder to the goggles’ SD card. The font loads by itself on goggle firmware 7.66.120 or newer.
  • Walksnail Avatar: copy the userfont folder to the SD card, then pick the font under Display, Font Update in the goggles.
  • DJI: FPV Goggles V1 and V2 with WTFOS and msp-osd 0.12 or newer. Copy the two PNG files to the root of the SD card and restart the goggles.
  • In Betaflight 4.4 or newer, set the VTX to MSP DisplayPort: set osd_displayport_device = MSP and set vcd_video_system = HD.

Questions

Is OSD Lab free?

Yes, with no account and no sign-up. Fonts are made in your browser and nothing you upload leaves it. Your work is saved in the browser, and the .mcm you download keeps your settings, so you can open it again on any computer.

Can I change my font later?

Yes. Open the .mcm you downloaded in OSD Lab and your letters, icons, boot logo, badge, crosshair and digital colours come back, ready to change. They are kept in bytes of the file that Betaflight never uses. Pictures you uploaded don’t fit, so choose a picture again to change what was made from it. Any other .mcm opens too, as a starting point.

What is an .mcm file?

The font file Betaflight loads into the analog OSD chip (MAX7456 or AT7456E): 256 characters, each 12×18 pixels in black, white and see-through. Letters, icons, the boot logo and the crosshair are all characters in it.

Which DJI goggles can load a custom font?

Only the original DJI FPV Goggles V1 and V2, running WTFOS with msp-osd 0.12 or newer. DJI Goggles 2, Integra, Goggles 3 and N3 draw DJI’s own font, which can’t be changed.

Does it work with INAV?

No. OSD Lab follows Betaflight: its 256-character font, its screens and its CLI. INAV uses 512-character fonts, which OSD Lab doesn’t make.

Which browser do I need?

Any current browser builds and downloads the font. Flashing over USB and writing straight to the goggles’ SD card need Chrome or Edge on a computer.

Can I edit single characters?

Yes. The pixel editor opens the same font: draw any character pixel by pixel, compose graphics across several characters, import a boot logo, and open or save .mcm and .h files.

Who made OSD Lab?

Paweł Laszczak (pawelos), the Polish FPV racing pilot and 2024 MultiGP Drone Racing World Champion. It is built on the open-source OSD Fonts project by Rotordeck, and every font keeps its own licence.