Function Repository Resource:

ImageASCII

Source Notebook

Convert an image to ASCII art

Contributed by: Karen Danielyan (karen_danielyan@outlook.com) and Mikayel Egibyan (mikayele@wolfram.com)

ResourceFunction["ImageASCII"][img]

converts img to an ASCII art representation and returns a string.

ResourceFunction["ImageASCII"][img,prop]

converts img to an ASCII art representation and returns the result as the specified prop.

Details and Options

ResourceFunction["ImageASCII"] only works with 2D images.

ResourceFunction["ImageASCII"] performs grayscale ASCII art by first converting img to grayscale.

Possible settings for prop include:

"Grid"

a Grid of characters

"Image"

an Image object,including rasterized characters

"Text"

a single string (default)

The following options can be specified:

12

font size to use when rasterizing ASCII characters

"ProcessingFunction"

preprocessing applied to the image

resize img before processing

By default, img is preprocessed using HistogramTransform[ImageAdjust[img]].

Examples

Basic Examples (2)

Convert an image into a string:

In[1]:=

Out[1]=

Check the output type:

In[2]:=

Out[2]=

Scope (3)

Convert an image into a structured Grid of copyable characters:

In[3]:=

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Check the output type:

In[4]:=

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The output contains formatted characters:

In[5]:=

Out[19]=

Convert an image into an ASCII art raster:

In[20]:=

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Options (6)

FontSize (2)

Specifying a custom font size for the character rasterization may result in a better recovered output:

In[21]:=

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On the other hand, a larger font size might improve the time complexity:

In[22]:=

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ProcessingFunction (2)

By default, a combination of image processing operations is performed to preprocess the input image:

In[23]:=

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Using a custom preprocessing function affects the output quality:

In[24]:=

(* Evaluate this cell to get the example input *) CloudGet["https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/3da2b4a5-d507-4801-b462-a3724d214529"]

Out[24]=

RasterSize (2)

By default, the input image dimensions are preserved:

In[25]:=

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In[26]:=

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Resize the image:

In[27]:=

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In[28]:=

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Applications (2)

Grab an image:

In[29]:=

Create an ASCII art version of the image:

In[30]:=

Export the result:

In[31]:=

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Use the conversion result as a code comment:

Import a GIF image from the web:

In[32]:=

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Generate an ASCII art version for each of the frames:

In[33]:=

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Possible Issues (3)

Using a new font requires rasterizing a new ASCII character set, which might be slow:

In[34]:=

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Using the same font a second time is much faster:

In[35]:=

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The final output image size might not exactly match the input image size:

In[36]:=

(* Evaluate this cell to get the example input *) CloudGet["https://www.wolframcloud.com/obj/5c91390b-3376-4498-b58b-68712cce520b"]

Out[36]=

In[37]:=

Out[37]=

Any font size smaller than 4 doesn't produce readable characters when outputting an Image:

In[38]:=

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Neat Examples (3)

Take a high-resolution image:

In[39]:=

In[40]:=

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In[41]:=

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Convert to ASCII art with a very small font size:

In[42]:=

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Blend the ASCII version with the original image to get a high quality colored ASCII art raster:

In[43]:=

Out[43]=

Publisher

Karen Danielyan

Related Links

Version History

1.0.0 – 20 November 2020

Source Metadata

Citation:
- Wang Z., Bovik A.C., Sheikh H.R., Simoncelli E.P. - Image quality assessment: From error visibility to structural similarity. IEEE Transactions on Image Processing.
- Hastie T., Tibshirani R., Friedman J. - The Elements of Statistical Learning: Data Mining, Inference and Prediction. Springer New York Inc., 2009.
- Nenad Markuš, Marco Fratarcangeli, Igor S. Pandžić, Jörgen Ahlberg - Fast Rendering of Image Mosaics and ASCII Art

Related Resources

License Information

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License