isomorpheme / textinator

A command line image viewer

Textinator

Textinator is a Python 3 command line program that converts images to text, allowing you to view them from the console. It uses a palette by default, but you can use any set of characters to display an image. There is also a colour mode using ANSI colour codes.

Installation

If you're not on Windows and want to convert JPEG or TIFF files, you will first need to install some dependencies. In most cases, you just need to install libjpeg-dev and libtiff-dev from your package manager (e.g. apt-get or brew). See the Pillow documentation page on external libraries for more info.

In any case, run this command to install Textinator:

$ pip install git+https://github.com/ijks/textinator.git

Usage

Usage: textinate [OPTIONS] IMAGE [OUT]

  Converts INPUT to a text representation. OUT is an optional file to save
  to.

  Supports most image filetypes by default, except for JPEG. For that you
  need to install libjpeg. For more info see:
  http://pillow.readthedocs.org/installation.html#external-libraries

Options:
  -w, --width INTEGER             Width of output. If height is not given, the
                                  image will be proportionally scaled.
  -h, --height INTEGER            Height of output. If width is not given, the
                                  image will be proportionally scaled. If
                                  neither width nor height are given, the
                                  current terminal width is used instead.
  --correct / --no-correct        Wether to account for the proportions of
                                  monospaced characters. On by default.
  -r, --resample [nearest|bilinear|bicubic|antialias]
                                  Filter to use for resampling. Default is
                                  antialias.
  -p, --palette TEXT              A custom palette for rendering images, from
                                  from dark to bright.
  -i, --invert                    Inverts the palette.
  -c, --colour                    Enables colour output. This does not disable
                                  the normal character palette. Rather, the
                                  characters get a foreground colour
                                  corresponding to the colour in the original.
  --background / --foreground     Wether to colour the foreground or
                                  background of characters. Does nothing if
                                  --colour is not present
  --debug                         Debug mode.
  --help                          Show this message and exit.

Ideas

• More control over how pixels get translated to characters (e.g. 2 characters per pixel)
• Dithering
• Smarter conversion
• Animation (.gif and png sequence)