Linux Candy: asciify – turn images into attractive ASCII art

Linux Candy is a series of articles covering interesting eye candy software. We only feature open source software in this series.

Some of the programs in this series are purely cosmetic, frivolous pieces of fun. Candy at their finest. But we also include some programs that aren’t purely decorative.

There’s a diverse range of programs included in this series. Programs such as eDEX-UI and Variety are actually highly practical programs. ASCIIQuarium has soothing and relaxing qualities for your desktop. Other programs included in this series (such as lolcat, cacafire) are included purely for their decorative qualities. And then there’s some really fun software that just raises a smile or two.

asciify is a CLI tool that converts images into ASCII art. It takes an image file as input, resizes it according to specified width and height parameters, and then converts the image into ASCII characters.

Installation

I evaluated asciify with Manjaro, an Arch-based Linux distribution.

There are two packages available in the AUR. I chose the second one as it’s the latest version.

The program needs a lot of dependencies installed on my system.

Installation proceeded with no issues.

A small update to v1.1.0 is now available.

In Operation

Issue the command asciify --help to see the program’s options. You’ll need to click the image to see the options.

Here’s example output.

Features include:

• Colored output: ANSI color codes allow to print colors. A modern terminal is needed
• Resizing flexibility: Images are scaled to keep aspect ratio and fit the image to the terminal, but both options can be disabled.
• Edge detection: Sobel and Canny algorithm are used to highlight edges.  Sobel and Canny are fundamental edge detection algorithms in image processing.
  • Sobel provides fast, simple, and thick gradient-based edges suitable for real-time applications.
  • Canny is a more sophisticated, multi-phase technique that yields finely detailed, 1-pixel wide lines that are both smooth and resistant to noise.
• Output flexibility: Resulting images can be saved in a file (both using the terminal to determine optimal size or providing custom height and/or width).

Summary

Feed the program a JPEG or PNG and it will produce an ASCII equivalent. You need to be careful with the image chosen. The optional parameters help generate images which are reasonable clear particularly if you use a high enough resolution.

This package can also be used as a Python library.

Website: github.com/ndrscalia/asciify-them
Support:
Developer: Andrea Scalia
License: MIT License

asciify is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

Complete list of articles in this series: