TermChroma

TermChroma is a powerful command-line utility for converting images into ASCII art, complete with an interactive TUI, multiple color gradients, and the ability to save the output (including ANSI color escape codes) to a file.

• Version: 1.1.0
• License: MIT (or your choice)

Features

• Multiple ASCII Sets: Choose from built-in sets or define your own with --chars.
• Multiple Color Modes: None, grayscale, rainbow, blue2red, or custom color mapping.
• Interactive TUI:
  • Resize your ASCII art on the fly.
  • Change character sets with arrow keys.
  • Toggle color modes with C.
  • Press Q to quit.
  • Art is always scaled to fit the terminal window, so it never overflows.
• Single-shot Conversion: Use --no-tui to simply convert and print or save the ASCII art.
• Save to a File: Use -o/--save <file> to write ASCII output (with color codes) to disk.
• 256-Color Table: --random-colors displays a color swatch chart.

Dependencies

• Python 3.6+
• Pillow for image processing

pip install Pillow

Installation

1. Clone or download this repository.
2. Place termchroma.py in a directory within your $PATH, or just run it locally.
3. Ensure you have Python 3 and Pillow installed.

Usage

termchroma.py [OPTIONS] [IMAGE]

Key Options:

• -o, --save <FILE>
  Save the ASCII art to FILE (including ANSI color if any).
• --scale <FLOAT>
  Initial scale factor (default 0.5).
• --chars <STRING>
  Override the default ASCII characters for brightness mapping.
• --gradient {none,grayscale,rainbow,blue2red,custom}
  Pick a color mode.
• --no-tui
  Disable interactive TUI; convert once and print/save ASCII art.
• --random-colors
  Display a 256‐color demonstration table, then exit.
• --resize-filter {nearest,bilinear,bicubic,lanczos}
  Pillow resize method (default lanczos).
• -v, --version
  Print version and exit.
• -h, --help
  Show help message and exit.

Interactive TUI Controls

• Up/Down: Increase/decrease scale.
• Left/Right: Cycle through different ASCII character sets.
• C (or c): Cycle color modes.
• Q (or q): Quit TUI.

Examples

1. Basic TUI:

   termchroma.py myphoto.jpg

No TUI:

termchroma.py myphoto.jpg --no-tui --gradient rainbow

Saving to file:

termchroma.py myphoto.jpg --no-tui --scale 0.4 --gradient rainbow --save out.txt

Show 256-color table:

termchroma.py --random-colors

License

MIT License (or whichever license you prefer). See LICENSE file for details. Contributing

Fork the repo and create your branch from main.
Make changes or add new features.
Submit a pull request.

Author

Kleinpanic

Enjoy TermChroma for your ASCII art needs!

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