image_to_console is a command-line image viewer written in Rust which renders pictures directly inside compatible terminal emulators.
It can take input from local files, remote URLs, encoded data, standard input or whole directories, making it useful both interactively and as part of shell pipelines. Depending on the terminal and selected mode, it can render with coloured Unicode blocks or use a native graphics protocol for higher-quality output. Optional functionality extends the program beyond static pictures to animation and video playback.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Loads images from local files, URLs, Base64 strings and standard input.
- Processes complete directories of images in batch mode.
- Automatically scales images to the available display dimensions.
- Provides full-resolution and half-resolution rendering modes.
- Supports true-colour output in compatible environments.
- Offers grayscale character-art rendering.
- Can use a black background when displaying grayscale output.
- Supports the Kitty graphics protocol.
- Supports Sixel graphics with configurable colour limits and dithering.
- Supports the WezTerm and iTerm2 image protocols.
- Can automatically select an appropriate graphics protocol.
- Plays animated GIF files with configurable frame rates and looping.
- Offers optional video playback using FFmpeg.
- Can associate an audio track with GIF or video playback.
- Uses parallel processing to accelerate image conversion.
- Can save rendered character output to a file rather than displaying it.
- Supports TOML configuration files for defining more complex rendering tasks.
- Handles common formats including JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, ICO, TIFF and WebP.
Website: github.com/yyxxryrx/image_to_console
Support:
Developer: yyxxryrx
License: MIT License
image_to_console is written in Rust. Learn Rust with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
Related Software
| Terminal-Based Image Viewers | |
|---|---|
| timg | Image and video viewer with good range of features. Written in C++ |
| Chafa | Character Art Facsimile |
| viu | Rust-based image viewer |
| vv | Image viewer for sixel terminals |
| TIV | Tiny C++ program that displays images in a terminal |
| Ranger | Terminal-based file manager supporting high quality previews of images |
| mcat | Extended cat command |
| icat | Cat like utility can specify multiple image files and/or directories |
| PixelTerm-C | High-performance terminal image browser written in C |
| pho | Lightweight image viewer |
| catimg | Renders images in the terminal |
| PTUI | Real-time image preview capabilities |
| imv | X11/Wayland image viewer |
| iv | Image viewer using terminal graphics |
| TermVisage | Front-end to the term-image library |
| Foto | Simple image viewer |
| vat | Renders SVG and other vector graphics in multiple formats |
| image_to_console | Fast image viewer supporting animations and graphics protocols |
| rsimg | Uses crossterm and zune as dependencies |
| imgcat | Displays images and gifs in your terminal emulator. |
Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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