Ascier

Ascier is a C++ cli that can convert any images/videos into ascii art

Usage

command line arguments

-i              Path of target image
                If this flag is not specify, ascier will take rgb24 pixel stream from stdin instead
-width          Width of the input image from stdin
-height         Height of the image imgae from stdin
-scale          Scaling factor of final image, default to 1
-pixelWidth     How times each pixel is printed in the horizontal direction, default to 2
-o              Path of output text file
                If this flag is not specify, ascier will output the art through stdout

Example

Convert test.png into ascii art into stdout with final image scaled half
Ascier -i ./test.png -scale .5

Into output.txt instead of stdout
Ascier -i ./test.png -scale .5 -o output.txt

Pair with ffmpeg

You can convert videos into ascii art, by first turning the video into a rgb24 pixel stream, then feed it through the stdin of Ascier
The easier way to do this is probably through ffmpeg

This turn rickroll.mp4 (640x360) into AsciiArt, the output file are place under frames folder
ffmpeg -i rickroll.mp4 -pix_fmt rgb24 -f rawvideo - | Ascier -width 640 -height 360 -scale .5 -o ./frames/%03d.txt

Note :
ffmpeg -i rickroll.mp4 -pix_fmt rgb24 -f rawvideo generate rgb24 pixel stream
%03d is a format specifier and will be replace by integer starting from 0

Building

You need to link these library (opencv)
libopencv_imgproc libopencv_imgcodecs libopencv_core