# ascii_art

**Repository Path**: mirrors_symisc/ascii_art

## Basic Information

- **Project Name**: ascii_art
- **Description**: Real-Time ASCII Art Rendering Library
- **Primary Language**: Unknown
- **License**: GPL-2.0
- **Default Branch**: master
- **Homepage**: None
- **GVP Project**: No

## Statistics

- **Stars**: 0
- **Forks**: 0
- **Created**: 2022-01-11
- **Last Updated**: 2025-12-07

## Categories & Tags

**Categories**: Uncategorized

**Tags**: None

## README

# ASCII Art
### Real-Time ASCII Art Rendering Library - Live demo: https://art.pixlab.io
### Integration Reference Guide: https://pixlab.io/art

ASCII Art is a single file C/C++ library that let you transform an input image or video frame into printable ASCII characters at real-time using a single decision tree. Real-time performance is achieved by using pixel intensity comparison inside internal nodes of the tree.

### ASCII Camera Now Availabe On Unity Asset Store: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/slug/165558

For a general overview on how the algorithm works, check the bottom of the [demo page](https://art.pixlab.io/#algo).

![Output](https://i.imgur.com/cdJBzXI.png)
ASCII art is a related (and older) graphic design technique for producing images from printable characters. This implementation is based on the paper:

>N. Markus, M. Fratarcangeli, I. S. Pandzic and J. Ahlberg, "Fast Rendering of Image Mosaics and ASCII Art", Computer Graphics Forum, 2015, <http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cgf.12597>


# Getting started

Embedding the library in your application is straightforward. All you have to do is drop the **ascii_art.c** and its header file in your source tree plus the hex model that can be downloaded [here](https://pixlab.io/art) and perform the following API calls successively:

 1. Call [AsciiArtInit](https://pixlab.io/art) first to initialize the **ascii_render** structure defined in the **ascii_art.h** header file.
 2. Prepare the image to be processed by converting it to the grayscale colorspace. You can rely on some external library like OpenCV [cvtColor](https://docs.opencv.org/3.1.0/de/d25/imgproc_color_conversions.html) or the built-in [AsciiArtLoadImage](https://pixlab.io/art) interface.
 3. Allocate a buffer big enough to hold the entire ASCII text output. The amount of bytes needed is returned via the [AsciiArtTextBufSize](https://pixlab.io/art) interface. This step is optional if you do not want a text output but instead a binary ASCII glyphs image.
 4. Finally, transform the input image into ASCII glyphs/text via [AsciiArtRender](https://pixlab.io/art).
 
Below is a simple C program that demonstrates a typical usage of the ASCII Art C/C++ interfaces.

```C
#include "ascii_art.h"

ascii_render sRender; /* Stack allocated */
	
/* Initialize the render structure */
AsciiArtInit(&sRender);
	
/* Load an image from disk */
int width, height;
unsigned char *zBlob = AsciiArtLoadImage(argv[1],&width,&height);
if( zBlob == 0 ){
	puts("Cannot load image");
	return;
}
	
/* Allocate a buffer big enough to hold the entire text output */
size_t nBytes = AsciiArtTextBufSize(&sRender, width, height);
unsigned char *zText = malloc(nBytes);
	
/* Finally, process */ 
AsciiArtRender(&sRender, zBlob, &width, &height, zText,1);
/* zBlob[] hold the binary ASCII glyphs now */
	
/* Output the result */
fwrite(zText, sizeof(char), nBytes, stdout);
	
/* Release memory */
free(zText);
free(zBlob);
```
sample.c [source code](https://github.com/symisc/ascii_art/blob/master/sample.c)
# Resources
* The C/C++ API reference (Only three interfaces are exported plus another optional), the hex model are all available on the official PixLab page at: https://pixlab.io/art
* The live demo: https://art.pixlab.io
* Please report any issue or feature request here on Github. 
* Unity Asset Store Package: https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/slug/165558