fp-alice / scala-ascii-art

A Scala remake of a previous app I wrote in Python. You can use this from a terminal to turn png / jpg images into ascii art with various different settings.

About

This is a scala version of a previous project I did in python.

This app is actually usable, unlike the previous one, which was basically just demonstration.

It's slow for really big images, but obviously there is a limit to what you can reasonably represent with text. Just keep images to reasonable size and you should be alright.

Examples are in the pictures directory.

Using it

Running the app is obviously done with java -jar, or as I was doing in testing, run from the sbt shell. To build the app sbt assembly.

Usage: scala-ascii-art [options] <file>

  -i, --invert <bool>      
  -c, --compression <compression factor>
                           
  -l, --lightness <lightness modifier>
                           
  -w, --write <output file>
                           
  --help                   prints this usage text
  <file>            

Images are inverted by default, -i false will disable this inversion.

The text produced by this is obviously compressed -c 2 will compress to 1/2, -c 8 will compress to 1/8th, etc. A higher number means less detail, lower numbers are more intensive to run and produce bigger chunks of text.

Optionally, you can offset the lightness of the pixels in the image across the board (positive or negative) with -l <integer>. This will change the selection of characters.

If you want to save the output to a file, -w <file path> will save the text to your specified file if it does not already exist.

Finally, there is a required file argument for the image input.

Example command and output.

java -jar scala-ascii-art.jar -c 8 pictures/star.png -w pictures/star.txt
                                                  
                      00MMQQ                      
                    MMMMMMMMMM                    
                  llMMMMMMMMMMll                  
                  MMMMMM  MMMMMM                  
                  MMMMMM  MMMMMM                  
                FFMMMM;;  ;;MMMM}}                
                MMMMMM      MMMMMM                
  jjMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM      MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMjj  
NNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM::      ::MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMWW
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM          MMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
MMMMOO                                      $$MMMM
MMMMMMMM                                  MMMMMMMM
;;MMMMMMMM''                          ''MMMMMMMM;;
    MMMMMMMMcc                      ccMMMMMMMM    
      WWMMMMMMMM                  MMMMMMMMWW      
        ??MMMMMM                  MMMMMMjj        
          MMMMMM                  MMMMMM          
        ;;MMMMcc                  ccMMMM;;        
        MMMMMM        ;;MM;;        MMMMMM        
        MMMMMM      RRMMMMMMRR      MMMMMM        
      --MMMMSS  ,,MMMMMMMMMMMMMM,,  SSMMMM--      
      GGMMMM  aaMMMMMMMM!!MMMMMMMMaa  MMMMpp      
      LLMMMMMMMMMMMM00      00MMMMMMMMMMMMvv      
        MMMMMMMMMM;;          ;;MMMMMMMMMM        
          @@MM##                  RRMM@@