You ever find yourself at 3 AM, scouring the internet for a simple command-line tool to convert images into ASCII art, only to realize that every single one of them is either ancient, incomplete, or just outright refuses to support block characters? Yeah, that was me. Sitting there, disappointed, betrayed, and increasingly caffeinated.

So, what do you do when the internet fails you? You build it yourself. Introducing pic2ascii – a Python-powered command-line tool that finally lets you convert images into ASCII, with block characters and color support like it should’ve been all along!

But Why, Though?

Listen, ASCII art is an underappreciated art form. Sure, standard characters like @, #, and . are fine, but when you introduce block elements like █, ▓, and ░, suddenly, your ASCII art doesn’t look like a sad mess—it actually resembles something! But could I find a tool that supported this out of the box? Of course not. And don’t even get me started on color support.

Thus, pic2ascii was born. A tool that:

  • Converts images into ASCII art properly
  • Supports block characters for sharper results
  • Has color output for maximum visual flair
  • Even includes edge detection for extra dramatic effect
  • Works directly in your Linux terminal like a good little program should

Where Can You Get It?

I’ve put it all up on GitHub, so you don’t have to suffer like I did:
-> https://github.com/kimusan/pic2ascii

Go grab it, clone it, and start ASCII-fying everything in sight!

How to Use It (it’s too easy really!)

It’s super simple. Just run:

python pic2ascii.py image.jpg -w 100 -b -c

This will:

  • Convert image.jpg to ASCII
  • Use block characters (-b)
  • Add color support (-c)
  • Set output width to 100 characters (-w 100)

Want to spice things up? Add edge detection:

python pic2ascii.py image.jpg -w 100 -e 50

Want to invert the brightness mapping? We got that too:

python pic2ascii.py image.jpg -w 100 -i

Got Ideas? Send a PR!

Listen, I built this because I needed it. But I know there’s always room for improvement. If you have some wild ideas for new features (or just want to complain about my code), feel free to open an issue or send a pull request over at GitHub.

Otherwise, just drop a comment below with your suggestions—preferably written in ASCII art, of course.

me working on my small python ascii art generator script