vat is a focused command-line utility for viewing vector artwork without opening a conventional graphical image viewer.
It takes vector graphics and rasterises them for display directly inside a terminal supporting the Kitty graphics protocol. Its supported inputs make it particularly interesting to developers working with web, Android and Jetpack Compose graphics, as the same tool can inspect SVG files, Android Vector Drawables and Compose ImageVectors. Compatible terminal emulators include Kitty, Ghostty and WezTerm.
This is free and open source software.
Key Features
- Renders Scalable Vector Graphics directly inside a compatible terminal.
- Displays Android Vector Drawable artwork.
- Supports vector assets represented as Compose ImageVectors.
- Uses the Kitty graphics protocol for displaying rendered output.
- Works with multiple terminal emulators implementing the Kitty protocol.
- Accepts the artwork to render as a command-line file argument.
- Provides a configurable scale factor for resizing rendered graphics.
- Lets users specify a background colour in hexadecimal RGBA notation.
- Offers a concise command-line interface suitable for scripts and development workflows.
- Provides native distribution builds rather than requiring a persistent graphical application.
- Can also be executed as a Java archive on platforms where that deployment method is preferable.
- Uses the vgo vector graphics library for parsing and rendering supported artwork.
- Fits naturally into workflows where developers want to inspect graphical resources alongside source files.
- Avoids the need to switch to a separate desktop image viewer merely to inspect a vector asset.
Website: github.com/jzbrooks/vat
Support:
Developer: Justin Brooks
License: MIT License
vat is written in Kotlin. Learn Kotlin with our recommended free books and free tutorials.
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Read our verdict in the software roundup.
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