dotz - terminal image and video previewer in Braille art

Render image and video previews as Braille art in the terminal with xterm-256 color and ncurses dim/normal/bold attributes.

It was written to be used as a terminal image viewer with nnn. Works independently too.

Features

• Braille art rendering for images
• Animated GIF support
• xterm-256 color and grayscale
• Dithering options (ordered, error diffusion)
• Video preview (frame extraction with ffmpeg)
• File metadata panel
• Zoom in, zoom out, pan while zoom
• Rotate clockwise, flip horizontally
• Bounded background preloading
• Keyboard navigation and slideshow mode
• Video playback with seek controls

Supported formats

• Image: PNG, JPG, JPEG, BMP, GIF, TIFF, WEBP
• Video: MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WEBM, FLV, WMV, MPEG, MPG

Installation

Install from PyPI:

pip3 install dotz

Or install from the source repository:

# Install system dependencies (e.g., ffmpeg)
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg  # or use your OS package manager

# Install Python dependencies and the CLI tool
sudo pip3 install .

After installation, you can run the tool using:

dotz [options] <file-or-directory>

You can also run the tool directly from the source directory:

python3 dotz.py [options] <file-or-directory>

Dependencies

Package	Version	Usage
python	>=3.7	Required Python version
numpy	>=1.20	Fast array operations for image processing
Pillow	>=8.0	Image loading and manipulation
ffmpeg	>=4.2	Video frame extraction

Usage

usage: dotz [-h] [-S] [-C] [-d {ordered,error,none}] [-s [DELAY]] [-k SEEK] [-f {jpeg,png}] [path]

Render an image or all images/videos in a directory as Braille cells using ncurses with optional xterm-256 color.

positional arguments:
  path                  Path to the image/video file or directory (optional)

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  -S, --no-sharpen      Disable edge sharpening
  -C, --no-color        Disable color (greyscale only with dim/normal/bold)
  -d {ordered,error,none}, --dither {ordered,error,none}
                        Dithering mode: ordered (default, clean), error (Floyd-Steinberg, smooth gradients), none
  -s [DELAY], --slideshow [DELAY]
                        Enable slideshow mode with optional integer delay in seconds (default: 5).
  -k SEEK, --seek SEEK  Seek position to extract frame from videos in seconds (default: 10)
  -f {jpeg,png}, --format {jpeg,png}
                        Format for extracted video frames: jpeg (default) or png

Examples

• Syntax:

  python3 -m dotz <file-or-directory>

• To render a single image:

  python3 -m dotz path/to/image.jpg

• To render all images and videos in a directory:

  python3 -m dotz path/to/directory/

• To run a slideshow with a custom delay (e.g. 3 seconds):

  python3 -m dotz -s 3 path/to/directory/

Navigation

Key	Action
Right, n, Space	Next
Left, p	Previous
Up, Down	First, Last
s, S	Toggle forward/reverse slideshow
+, -, 0	Zoom in, zoom out, zoom reset
h, j, k, l	Pan left, down, up, right while zoomed
r	Rotate clockwise
f	Flip horizontally
i	Show file metadata
d, D	Decrease/increase slideshow delay by 1 sec
[, ]	Seek backward/forward in a video by the current seek step
{, }	Decrease/increase the video seek step: 1, 2, 5, 10, or 30 sec
,, .	Move to the previous/next 0.2 sec video preview frame
v	Toggle a lightweight 5 fps video preview
q, Esc	Quit
?	Show keyboard help

The two-line status bar shows the current item and filename first, followed by zoom, slideshow, and video state on the second line.

License

MIT