Slashdot Mirror
Color Ascii Art Library
thedj_sd writes "As the true slashdot reader you just love ascii art of course. You have toyed around with aalib or maybe you use it all the time to watch your pr0n :) Well VLC media player's senior developer sam was bored some time ago and created libcaca. The Colour AsCii Art library of which he himself says: 'I am perfectly aware that libcaca is the waste of time it looks to be. No need to tell me about that.' But you just can't help looking at that beautiful picture of Stitch, and Doom in coloured ascii is da bomb. It works on dos/windows, Linux and Mac OS X and there is a VLC plugin and SDL backend available."
and I thought aalib was good http://aa-project.sourceforge.net/aalib/
libkacke?
Heh heh. He said "caca".
So bad the name doesn't seems to say much about nice colours .... : )
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Wow, now that is funny. In french, caca means poo or shit. That guy just created "libshit".
.. so I too can view movies in colour when I'm browsing with Lynx :)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
I really have to recommend it! It's great fun to watch! I always use it when I want to watch pr0n but too lazy to fire up X11.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
I can see it now. Tons of goatse ASCII's coming up :-/
Boy that takes me back ...
libshit is the code name for kernel32.dll : )
WTF am I doing replying to an AC at 5 A.M on a Friday night?
Agreed. Most commercial software firms will not develop with a library if it's name means shit. It's attitudes like this which work against ascii art libraries being taken seriously in the commercial world.
If I seem short sighted, it is because I stand on the shoulders of midgets
Brilliant, eh?
http://www.google.nl/search?q=cache:NtGVCbhHFTkJ:s am.zoy.org/projects/libcaca/+libcaca&hl=nl&ie=UTF- 8
Note the mirror. /. folks! Please be easy on the server!
libcaca - Colour AsCii Art library
it's da shit!
Hello
Images and tarball are mirrored at http://www.via.ecp.fr/~sam/local/libcaca/.
The libcaca library is a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it can work on older video cards or text terminals. It is not unlike the famous AAlib library. libcaca needs a terminal to work, thus it should work on all Unix systems (including Mac OS X) using either the slang library or the ncurses library, on DOS using the library, and on Windows systems using either slang or ncurses (through Cygwin emulation) or .
Libcaca is free software, and can be used, modified and ditributed under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Publice License. The logo on this page is copyrighted by Akira Toriyama so if anyone fancies drawing a new logo it would be much appreciated. Features
The differences with AAlib are the following:
* 16 available colours for character output
* dithering of colour images
* basic sprite primitives
But libcaca also has the following limitations:
* no support for brightness, contrast, gamma
* unefficient character-choosing algorithms
* no alternate fonts
* no raw keyboard support
* mouse support only works for slang
* no custom drivers a la AA-on-X
I am perfectly aware that libcaca is the waste of time it looks to be. No need to tell me about that.
Screenshots
Here are my first libcaca attempts. On the left, my test application, an image viewer. On the right, my first port of an application so that it uses libcaca: the VLC media player.
As with all image processing applications, I needed the obligatory Lenna samples. From left to right: no dithering, ordered dithering, random dithering.
no dithering ordered dithering random dithering
Here are a few examples of my libcaca patch for libSDL. Once there is a libcaca backend for libSDL, any program using SDL can automatically benefit from libcaca's rendering routines. These examples show Frozen Bubble, the SABRE flight simulator, and the famous Doom. Frozen Bubble is fully playable, but SABRE and Doom aren't much due to the Ctrl and Shift keys not being recognized (see the TODO list about that).
Frozen Bubble SABRE Doom splash screen first Doom level Download libcaca
Latest libcaca release is libcaca-0.1.tar.gz. See the NEWS and ChangeLog files.
Until libcaca enters Debian, woody and sid users may use one of the following apt sources: (sorry, sarge is not supported yet)
deb http://sam.zoy.org/projects/debian woody main
deb-src http://sam.zoy.org/projects/debian woody main
deb http://sam.zoy.org/projects/debian sid main
deb-src http://sam.zoy.org/projects/debian sid main
Patch for libSDL
This simple patch was quickly hacked from the AAlib video driver. Apply it to the libSDL sources and configuree libSDL with --enable-video-caca. Then use the SDL_VIDEODRIVER environment variable to run your SDL programs with libcaca output, for instance Frozen Bubble:
SDL_VIDEODRIVER=caca frozen-bubble
Download patch-libsdl1.2-libcaca0.1.diff. Patch for VLC The libcaca patch for the VLC media player was already applied upstream. Check the CVS version. Development The mailing-list for libcaca users and developers is libcaca@lists.zoy.org. To subscribe, send an email to ecartis@lists.zoy.org containing the words "subscribe libcaca". To unsubscribe, just use "unsubscribe libcaca". Please report bugs and make suggestions to libcaca@lists.zoy.org. There is no public access to the SVN repository yet, but you can browse it using the web interface, for instance to have a look at the BUGS and TODO lists.
It'll probably get slashdotted quickly, but for those who remember ANSI Art groups like iCE and ACiD I am in the process of creating a library of their packs viewable online. http://ansi.idledreams.net for the actual site and http://idledreams.net/ansi/ for news about it.
Man, that was fast. One second I was loading and reading the libcaca page, I immediately browsed down to the links to the images, and after some 30 seconds after I loaded the page, already the PNG's (or indeed the entire server) was unavailable. There is a mirror for the images, though:
http://www.via.ecp.fr/~sam/local/libcaca/
JeR
I'm a true slashdot reader, but I don't like ASCII "art". Who came up with this nonsense, anyway?
So we have now Big Mouth Billy Bass linux support . We have color Ascii Art Library. Wow. I really needed those two.
But when we're talking about it more seriously: I've heard once from CTO of some medium-business company, when I was suggesting him to use some Open Source solution instead of MS SQL based system: Yes. I know that they do lots of useful things, but how can I trust to people who release stuff like aalib.
So the bottom line is they will never consider us geeks as serious conversation partner. OS movement needs some white collar guys, that can speak to all those marketing infested CTO's CEOs and other wiseasses. The ones that speak marketingish.
In Portuguese (ranking #7 of the most spoken language), caca is a synonym for feces. Not a very fortunate name for a library I would say.
For those interested, here's Text mode Quake and AsciiMac, wich seem to predate the previous one, including the X11 ASCII art thing.
What is it with ASCII??
Amazing stuff... now what? let me guess... 1) a KDE emulator for the console, with COLORS! 2) most games ported ... imagine WarCraftIII in pure ASCII... well, the refresh rate got to be good, though =)
And all those posts that say it's a waste of time... just think broad!
http://www.automatiq.se
The Colour AsCii Art library of which he himself says: 'I am perfectly aware that libcaca is the waste of time it looks to be. No need to tell me about that.'
Sounds like he has a pretty humble attitude about this whole thing.
Click on it !
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
I can't view this now - big brother's proxy and all - but it sounds like the good old days of the C64 BBSs that used PETSCII graphics. Full color, and many graphical characters - however ALL CAPS TEXT ONLY! But the days of the good old animated prompts and colorful message boards are still in my memories, yet I have no desire to go back to them and wait for a cursor to jump all around the screen at 1200 baud!
Apple provides an ASCII quicktime movie player, here:
d e/ QuickTime/Goodies/ASCIIMoviePlayerSample.htm
http://developer.apple.com/samplecode/Sample_Co
There's nothing quite like watching the Matrix trailer in ASCII glory.
You can tell a great deal about the character of a man by observing those who hate him.
Behold! The human form in all it glory!
You can even recreate classic works of art:
The Arnolfini Wedding Portrait by Jan Van Eyck:
______
|..(......_
|@@....
|..d........
The Creation of Adam by Michaelangelo:
Tyr Hits! -more-
And for God's sake, lighten up the lameness filter!
Yes, it means what you think it means.
Just see the logo
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
More info can be found in yesterday's extensive discussion on this. :)
--a
His webpage logo is clealy a lop of poo.
Trolls lurk everywhere. Mod them down.
Sounds like the perfect time to try out my new video card!
Sweeeeet! ;)
If it supported Unicode it wouldn't be ASCII.
Only in softcore, my friend, hardcore pr0n also has penetrations to amazing depths...
Now maybe we can finally replace X with a modern graphical user interface!
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
What about Publishit Pro? http://www.huamed.com/publish/
You, sir, would have my mod points if you weren't already at 5+ Funny.
Thank you for brightening my day.
I wonder in fear what kind of application the poopsmith might build with that library...
In Soviet Russia, our new overlords are belong to all your base.
Whenever someone mirrors some webpage in a /. posting, because the crowd has downed the server, he can use this lib to mirror the images too.
I really hope this means people getting into more "ascii" art type things, like games.
:)
It would really great if somebody out there could help out with the Trek7 project over at sourceforge!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/trek7/
I'd also like to get my "Bambi vs Godzilla" ascii art movie online... Yes, movies!
But really, trek7 is the one I need the most help with. Aren't there any Trek7 fans out there?
Careful now.
Down with this sort of thing!
Fry: heh, Yakov Smirnoff said it
Leela: No he didn't.
It seems from the posts that it's also shit in a lot of european languages.
We are Turing O-Machines. The Oracle is out there.
Indeed if you have the latest drivers for the DirectX series of ATI cards installed ( Catalyst 3.8+ ) you will find a smartshader menu in the display properties. Smartshaders are applyed in the last pass on the picture before its send to the screen. There are filters for making it look like a classic painting and things like that. In the settings for OpenGL smartshader there is a option to render the picture as ASCII ( only white /black or green/black though ).
However it way funny to play Call of duty in ascii .
people dont have a problem using and abusing the Gimp .. playing with libcaca doesn't seem so bad.
.. i hear stuff like that is poular in Japan ..
actually how about piping the Gimp through libcaca
That's taking me back about 10 years. Oh shit, I'm 16 and I can't get a fucking date! AAaaaah!
Glad I'm really 26 and married. Oh, wait - AAaaahhh!!!
Seriously, thanks for posting the stuff.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Should I bother releasing my patch to AALib? Replaces the monochrome buffer with a 32bpp RGB- buffer, uses a much more tuned colour-selection system than libCACA appears to.
A screenshot of the BattleToads title screen, linked out of Archive.org as I don't have a current website for the TextNES emulator worth pointing too at the moment, unfortunately.
But yeah... been there, did that, didn't think anyone would be interested so I never released the patch.
It merely converts the picture to lower resolution image by replacing each pixel with a symbol like * or @ with different colour. This is cheating. Anyone can write a program that does this conversion.
The real ascii art uses only black text. And by using different ascii symbol, it can create the black and white and different shade of gray to protray an image.
For instance, Simpsons ASCII ART
Go ahead release it. I always wanted color in aalib..
Every time there is a story about someone doing something just for the hell of it some tool comes along and says that it's a bad idea because it doesn't directly enrich Linux/Open Source/The Roman Empire/Whatever in the manner that said poster wants it to.
Dude, and all of your close-minded brethren, chill the hell out. People do these things because they are having fun. They do them because they WANT to.
Not everyoine gives a damn about Fighting The Big Fight. Get over yourself.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
Somebody who was honestly concerned about exploitation of garment or sex workers would not be trying to abolish their trade, but rather working to improve working conditions for those in that industry. It is a safe bet that what workers in foreign garment factories want is not for Westerners to stop buying their products (thereby throwing them out of work), but rather for their employers to be pressured to provide improved working conditions--shorter hours, better wages and benefits, job security and retraining. In other words, the same things that workers in every other industry want, but keeping in mind that demanding true parity with Western labor standards is just another way of throwing them out of work.
I can now play Unreal Tournament/whatever on my silent p90 thin-client
A blog I run for the wealth
I just can't wait to run GIMP in my CGA-equipped Pentium 4.
Actually you can do a lot more than that, like with this program I wrote which uses shape based correlation to match the font to the image data.
No, I don't see it as any better when women dominate males than the other way around. The problem lies in that the norm is the male being the dominator. Porno isn't a bad thing per definition, but I think in its current state it's only helping to enfore the patriarchy and keeping men and women separated. If people want to do the things that happens in porno (anal, facials, whatever) at home that's no problem, but it's not good that majority of porno is all the same and gives a severly distorted view on sexuality.