Ascii

Turn any image (and soon video) into ascii art.

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About

This project is inspired by a video from the graphics programmer and content creator Acerola, who made a video on ascii art.

In a nutshell, the RGB values of a pixel can converge into a luminance value. Sampling the luminance values of an image results in a grayscale image. What this application does is to take this luminance value and use it as an index for a texture map. Ascii characters are used based on how much space their glyphs fill. The image is also downscaled so that the characters are visible from the default scale.

The function used for calculating the luminance value is sample:

fn sample(data: &Vec<u8>, y: u32, x: u32, width: u32, scale_y: u32, scale_x: u32) -> u32 {
    let mut sum = 0;

    for i in y..y + scale_y {
        for j in x..x + scale_x {
            sum += data[(i * width + j) as usize] as u32;
        }
    }

    sum / (scale_x * scale_y)
}

After sampling the luminance, it is used as an index for either the texture atlas or character array, wether the export options are set for text or image:

let avg = sample(&luminance, y, x, width, TILE_SIZE, TILE_SIZE);
let mut index = avg / 32;

for i in 0..TILE_SIZE {
    for j in 0..TILE_SIZE {
        let luma = (atlas.get_pixel(TILE_SIZE * index + j, i).0[0] as f32
            * (index as f32 / 10.0))
            as u8;
        canvas.put_pixel(x + j, y + i, Luma([luma]));
    }
}

Installation

cargo install --git https://github.com/JorgeTerence/ascii

Or download the executable from the latest release.

How to use

ascii path/to/media

Options

• -d or --display: Automatically open the output in the system's default media viewer;
• -i or --invert: Invert the input media's luminance values;
• -o or --output: Set output format; accepts img, txt or video (not yet implemented)

Future plans

• Edge detection
• Support for video formats
• Live video from camera stream

Galery

Photo by Kai-Chieh Chan: https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-and-brown-temple-569893