ASCII Art
Webpages concerning "ASCII Art"
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Wikipedia-Article "ASCII Art"
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ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). The term is also used more loosely to refer to text based art in general. They can be created with any text editor, and are often used with free-form languages. Most examples of ASCII art require a fixed-width font (non-proportional font, like on a traditional typewriter) such as Courier for presentation.
ASCII art is used wherever text can be more readily printed or transmitted than graphics, or in some cases, where the transmission of pictures is not possible. This includes typewriters, teletypes, non-graphic computer terminals, in early computer networking (e.g., BBSes), e-mail, and Usenet news messages. ASCII art is also used within the source code of computer programs for representation of company or product logos, and flow control or other diagrams. In some cases, the entire source code of a program is a piece of ASCII art - for instance, an entry to one of the earlier Obfuscated C contests is a program that adds numbers, but visually looks like a binary adder drawn in logic ports. Taking the medium to extremes, there exists a video driver for the popular computer game Quake that displays the game in ASCII art. ASCII art is also very commonly used amongst software piracy groups to display group logos inside text (*.nfo) files containing the instructions for installing and cracking the software (though these commonly use PC text mode characters as well as just ASCII).
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Types and examples of ASCII art
The simplest forms of ASCII art are combinations of two or three characters for expressing emotion in text. Rotate these examples mentally 90 degrees clockwise for a more recognizable orientation of these emoticons:
:-) or :) :-( or :( ;-) or ;) :-P or :p B-) or 8-)
smile frown wink Ha Ha cool
(tongue sticking out) (sunglasses)
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There is another type of one-line ASCII art that doesn't require the mental rotation of pictures, which is widely known in Japan as kaomoji (literally face characters.) Some call them "verticons":
\(^o^)/ (o.~) o< d O.O b yippee winking conspiracy duck listening to headphones |
More complex examples use several lines of text to draw large symbols or more complex figures. Some common examples:
o o o o o <o <o> o> o .|. \|. \|/ // X \ | <| <|> Ascii Macarena /\ >\ /< >\ /< >\ /< >\ /<
(__)
(oo)
/-------\/ __ O _ ,__o
/ | || /o)\ /|\ >(o)__ _-\_<,
* ||----|| \(o/ / \ (_~_/ (*)/'(*) _@/
~~ ~~ ~~~~~~~
Bull Yin/Yang Person Rubber Duck Cyclist Andalusian
Video Snail |
A very complicated and splendid example of this depicts a building
.-.
/___\ ||--------------.
|___| ||.___TO_LET___.|
|]_[| || asciihomes |
/ I \ || 555-1212 |
JL/ | \JL ||______________|
.-. i () | () i ||./ .-.
|_| .^. /_\ LJ=======LJ /_\ ||/ .^. |_|
._/___\._./___\_._._._._.L_J_/.-. .-.\_L_J._._||._._/___\._./___\._._._
., |-,-| ., L_J |_| [I] |_| L_J ., |-,-| ., .,
JL |-O-| JL L_J%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%L_J JL |-O-| JL JL
IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII|_|=======H=======|_|IIIIII_HH_'-'-'_HH_IIIIII_HH_
-------[]-------[]-------[_]----\.=I=./----[_]-------[]-------[]--------[]-
_/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ [_] []_/_L_J_\_[] [_] _/\_ ||\\_I_//|| _/\_ ||\
|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__|_|_| _L_L_J_J_ |_|_|__| ||=/_|_\=|| |__| ||-
|__| |||__|__||| |__[___]__--__===__--__[___]__| |||__|__||| |__| |||
IIIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIL___J__II__|_|__II__L___JIIIII[_]IIIII[_]IIIIIIII[_]
\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_[_]\II/[]\_\I/_/[]\II/[_]\_I_/ [_]\_I_/[_] \_I_/ [_]
./ \.L_J/ \L_J./ L_JI I[]/ \[]I IL_J \.L_J/ \L_J./ \.L_J
| |L_J| |L_J| L_J| |[]| |[]| |L_J |L_J| |L_J| |L_J
|_____JL_JL___JL_JL____|-|| |[]| |[]| ||-|_____JL_JL___JL_JL_____JL_J |
AHHHHA AHHHHHHA AllSTOPllA VHHHHHHV VHHHHV |
It is popular to put such art in one's signature block to be included in all one's e-mail and Usenet postings.
Some types ignore the particular shape of the characters and use them as more-or-less filled boxes of varying gradients to perform simple dithering:
_a,
_yQa.
_qTWW(
je`?QX:
<d+ -3Wm;
_qos_s%mWw,
a2?????TWW(
sd( -?Qm;.
.amm; .xmWmc
"""""` """""""
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Another type sometimes seen is creating a word using only one kind of character per letter. For example:
HHHHHH HHHHHH IIIIII !!! HHHH HHHH IIII !!!!! HHHH HHHH IIII !!!!! HHHH HHHH IIII !!!!! HHHHHHHHHHHHHH IIII !!!!! HHHHHHHHHHHHHH IIII !!!!! HHHHHHHHHHHHHH IIII !!! HHHH HHHH IIII HHHH HHHH IIII !!! HHHH HHHH IIII !!!!! HHHHHH HHHHHH IIIIII !!! |
Pictures can also be created this way, as this example of a heart shows, which was created using only 'x' characters.
XXXX XXXX
X X X X
X X X
X X
X X
X X
X
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XXXX XXXX
XXXXXX XXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
XXXXXXXXX
XXXXX
X
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One use for ASCII art is to create unique typography, for example:
___ __,
( / ( o _/_ /
/ __, _ _ `. _ _ , / /_
_/_(_/(_/ /_(/_ (___)/ / /_(_(__/ /_
//
(/
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The program Figlet (and other programs that support its standard) allow for the design and use of ASCII fonts.
_____ ___ ____ _ _ | ___|_ _/ ___| | ___| |_ | |_ | | | _| |/ _ \ __| | _| | | |_| | | __/ |_ |_| |___\____|_|\___|\__| |
An example of what "Amiga-style" (also referred to as "oldschool style") scene ASCII art looks like. This kind of ASCII art is always handmade in a text editor. Some popular editors used to make this kind of ASCII art are CygnusEditor aka CED (Amiga) and EditPlus2 (PC). (Note, if you have trouble reading it, the logo and signature both says "cherryboy")
______.----------------------------.______
:_) (_:
....|: :|....
: :<> <>: :
:···|: :|···:
.---+- -:- -:- -+---.
/\___ | /\___ /\_____ /\______ /\______ | /\___
_/ / | _/ /___ _/ __ / _/ __ / _/ __ / : _/ /
\ __//\ :/\\ _// / \ )/ //\ \ )/ //\ \ )/ //\ /\ \_ //\
_/¯¯ \)¯ \/ ¯¯ __¯ \/¯¯ ¯ ¯¯ \/¯¯ ¯_ ¯¯ \/¯¯ ¯_ ¯¯ \/ ¯)/ ¯¯ \_
\ )/¯ (/ (/ ¯ /
/¯¯ / / / _ ¯¯\
\_ /\__/ /\_ /\__/ /\__/ /\_(/ _/
=/ /===/ /==/ /===/ /=©d/ /=:=/ /=
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\/: :¯¯¯¯¯¯\/ ¯¯¯¯¯¯\/ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\/ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\/ | ¯¯¯¯¯¯\/
______.---+- :____ /\_____ : : ________: -+---.______
:_)····· :..... _/ /--+--./\_____.---+---./\___ .....: ·····(_:
|: : ..:..\ / : _/ / : _/ / ..:.. : :|
<> :.:.: : \ __//\ /\\ __ //\ /\ \_ //\ : :.:.: <>
|: :..._/¯¯ \)¯ \/ ¯¯ )/ ¯¯ \/ ¯¯)/ ¯¯ \_...: :|
: ____ ____ \ ¯ ¯ / ____ ____ :
\_. _\_ \\ //¯¯ _ ¯¯\\ // _/_ ._/
---· _ \¯ _ \\ \\_ /\_ /\_(/ _// // _ ¯/ _ ·---
/¯· \¯¯¯ ¯\¯¯¯ ¯¯=/ /:=/ /=:=/ /= ¯¯ ¯¯¯/¯ ¯¯¯/ ·¯\
: ¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\/-+--¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯\/--+--¯¯¯¯¯¯\/ ¯¯¯¯¯¯ :
|: : : :|
<> . . <>
|: _ . | __ .__.__ .|__ __ . :|
:¯)..... __(__|-|(_/_| (| ((__||__)(__)(__|__ .....(¯:
¯¯¯¯¯¯·-----------·-------|----|--|----(/----------(/--·-----------·¯¯¯¯¯¯ |
Methods for generating ASCII art
Specialized text editors are designed to draw lines, boxes, and filled areas easily. Generating ASCII art algorithmically is straightforward. A good example is this web-based application IMG2TXT. Converting a bitmap to ASCII art is a special case of vector quantization. An example of a generated image, next to the original, is given below:
tt%%%%%%tttttttttttttttttt;;;tttttt;;;:::;;;;;ttttttttt;;;;;;;;;tttt%%%C7O7
t,;;;;;;;;;;;;:;;;;::;;;::::::;;:::,... .......,...................,,:,::;t
t;ttttt%C7OO7%tttt%%%%%%tttttt%%tt;;,,....,,,,.,,,,,:::::;;;;;:,,:::;;;;;t;
t;ttttttCCCCC%%tt%tCO77x27777O77C%tttt;;::::::,,,,,,,,,,,:;;;::,,,,,:;::;;;
t:tttttttt;tttttttt%CC7OO77CC%%72OOO7C%ttt;;;;:,,,..,.,,......;xsQsG:...,::
;,;;;;;:;;:;;;;:,,,,,,,;;tttt;tttt%t%ttt;;;;:,...... tSMMM#Q%;:::,:;:
;,;;;;;:;;;;;:,tD@@@@8Zt,,:;;;;:;;;:;;:,,........... .;DMMMMD;...,;tttttt;
;,;;;;tttt;;.,@MMMMMMMMM#C..,..........:;tZ0SKbE@#MMMMMMMMC. .,;tCC7C%C%%t;
,.,,,,:;;:..,NMMMMMMMMMMMMMSQKE###NNNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM#C;7GDDD5G2OCCttt;
. ,sMMMMMNNN#NNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN@NMMbODS99Qs5xx2O77CCt
.,. DMMN##MNMMMMMMMMMMMMMMN#MN@NNNN##NN###@EE@MM@ttttt;;ttCC777Ot
.,::;:. ;NNNEGOCOZQG. ,MM#@@##@##@#####NNNN#NN@@K8Qx:,::::,:;;;ttt%t
..:;%ZsD0D0Ds57;@ME:,:;tO MN@@@#########NNNMMMM#K5t;,,;tt%ttttttt;;;;;:
tOQDDs5DQgEE@@bSMM,.;tx2 MMM#######NNNNN##NMNgx;::;t7O22xZ22xxOC%tt;;,:,
sQSsG2C%CxGs00DZ0Mt:t;. .tQMM########NNNN#NMMK. .,,:;:,,,...,,::,,,,,,,
sD8S9DsZxxxx22OCtO#MME8QMMMMM#######NN#NNNNMD. ...,,,... ...,:;tt;
t;tt%t%%tttt;;;;:,.,7#MMMMMMNNNNNNN#N####NMK...,:::;;;t;;;:,.. ..,:;%7t
t,;;;;:,,,,,.,,,... :s@NMN#NMMMMMNNNNMN@Z%xxZxxZZxxO7C%ttt;;:,,,,,,:;;;:
t;tttttttttt%%tt%tt;;,. t@NNNO,7S#MMM#sttt7xGZZZZZZxxZxZZx2x227%ttt;;::;,
t;tttCO2xGGsD00QQ99QD52%t,%59N#. .@D. .............,,,::::::::,.......,.
x7x2OOCC%ttt;;tttCCC%%tt;;.. ,,. 0% ......... .... ...
xxD5Z27OC%tt;;;:;;;:::;:,.... .2x@t ,;;tt%%77O7CC%tt;;:,..,,,,,... .,,
t:;;::::;;;ttttttt%%7O2xxx27Ob: 0M% ..,.,::;;;;;;;:,... .....,,:t%2GGt
: . ..,;::::;;;;;ttt;Q5 MC ..,..... .. ...,:,,::;tCC%t;
, ......... .,;tt9G; ,ttt%7OxxxxxZZxxxZZ5D009QSS8g8S0Dsx7Ctttt
. ......,...,,. ;OG5D98gKSgK9 CZ7C2xGs0S8gKbEEE@@@@@bg8ggKEEE@@@@@@5
:.,...,:::,,,.,,,t CgES0098b@M. .x57CCttt%CxxZxxO7C%ttt;;;;;;tt%OxGsZ%
:;;.,....,,;;t2509x ,OGZ772,O, t%t;:,.. ..;;;,. ..,,,,.. .
.. .;tD2, ,: ,t .,.... ..
. ,tOZ2; tDOt2, ;;:::::,:;;ttt:. . ...,;:,. .
. ,:;,. t;2; .;::;;;;tt;::.,........,::....;C;
. ,. .. . .. :;tt... .;:,..,. ....... .:;:... ..
Another method is to sample the image down to grayscale with less than 8-bit precision, and then assign a character for each value, as some online ASCII converters do (see external links below).
In the 1970s and early 1980s it was popular to produce a kind of ASCII art that relied on overprinting — the overall darkness of a particular character space dependent on how many characters, as well as the choice of character, printed in a particular place. Thanks to the increased granularity of tone, photographs were often converted to this type of printout. Even manual typewriters or daisy wheel printers could be used. The technique has fallen from popularity since all cheap printers can easily print photographs, and a normal text file (or an e-mail message or Usenet posting) cannot represent overprinted text. However, something similar has emerged to replace it: shaded or colored ASCII art, using ANSI video terminal markup or color codes (such as those found in HTML, IRC, and many internet message boards) to add a bit more tone variation. In this way, it is possible to create ASCII art where the characters only differ in color.
Animated ASCII art is possible by embedding video terminal escape sequences such as ANSI X3.64 for cursor movement into the "picture".
Non fixed-width ASCII
While most ASCII is created using a monospace font in which all characters are identical in width (Courier New is a popular font), there are some ASCII's using a proportional font, such as Arial. These ASCII's, rather than using a purely shade-based correspondence, use characters for slopes and borders and use block shading. These ASCII's generally offer greater precision and attention to detail than fixed-width ASCII's for a lower character count, although they are not as universally accessible since they are usually relatively font-specific.
Other text based art
There are a variety of other types of art using text symbols from character sets other than ASCII and/or some form of color coding. Despite not being pure ASCII, these are still often referred to as "ASCII art". The character set portion designed specifically for drawing are known as the line drawing characters or pseudo-graphics.
IBM PC
▄▄▄▄▄▄▄ █ ▄ ▄ █ █ ▄ █ █ ▀ █ █ ▀▀▀ █ ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ |
The IBM PC graphics hardware in text mode uses 16 bits per character. It supports a variety of configurations, but in its default mode under DOS they are used to give 256 glyphs from one of the IBM PC code pages (Code page 437 by default), 16 foreground colors, 8 background colors and a flash option. Such art can be loaded into screen memory directly. ANSI.SYS, if loaded, also allows such art to be placed on screen by outputting escape sequences that indicate movements of the screen cursor and color/flash changes. If this method is used then the art becomes known as ANSI art. The IBM PC code pages also include characters intended for simple drawing which often made this art appear much cleaner than that made with more traditional character sets. Plain text files are also seen with these characters, though they have become far less common since Windows GUI text editors (using the Windows ANSI code page) have largely replaced DOS based ones.
Shift jis
- Main article: Shift JIS art
A large character selection, the commonness of Japanese on the internet and the availibility of standard fonts with predictable spacing make shift-jis a common format for text based art on the internet.
Unicode
Unicode would seem to offer the ultimate flexibility in producing text based art with its huge variety of characters. However, finding a suitable fixed-width font is likely to be difficult if a significant subset of Unicode is desired. Also, the common practice of rendering Unicode with a mixture of variable width fonts is likely to make predictable display hard if more than a tiny subset of Unicode is used.
See also
Further reading
- Danet, Brenda. Cyberpl@y: Communicating Online. Oxford, UK: Berg, 2001. ISBN 1-85973-424-3.
- Riddell, Alan, ed. Typewriter Art. London, UK: London Magazine Editions (LME), 1975. ISBN 900-626-99-2.
- Roemer, Madge. Fun With Your Typewriter. Indian Hills, CO, USA: The Falcon's Wing Press, 1956. LCCN 56-13336.
External links
ASCII art editors
Editors created solely for the purpose of creating hand-made ASCII art.
- ACiDDraw 1.25r The leading ANSI and ASCII art editor for IBM PC DOS
- ASCII Art Studio 2.11 for Windows Shareware (30-day trial); allows freehand line-art illustration using the mouse
- ASCII/edit Shareware (30-day trial); Mac OS X; objects can be grouped, overlap, combined, and intersection characters can be turned on or off individually for each line and frame
- PabloDraw for Windows Freeware; features a peer-to-peer "joint editing" mode
- TundraDraw A cross-platform ANSI and ASCII editor for Microsoft Windows and X environments. Source code available.
- TextDraw Full color ASCII art editor for Windows. Interface is similar to Microsoft Paint.
- Email Effects ASCII art editor for Mac and Windows, also converts pictures and supports FIGlet fonts.
- JavE Freeware; A java ASCII editor with standard Photoshop-style tools, image conversion, FIGlet support, math formulas editor and a lot of other features. Requires Java virtual machine.
- Open Directory Project: List of ASCII art editors
- ASCIIart.net list of editors A comprehensive list of ASCII editors for DOS and Windows with informative reviews on each one
ASCII art generators
Tools which convert bitmapped images to ASCII text or otherwise automatically generate ASCII art with a minimal degree of human interaction.
- AA-lib A portable library which converts high-resolution images or video down to ASCII text images or 'video.'
- Alternate's ASCII Artist A tiny Open-Source ASCII Art Generator written in C++ .
- ASCII Artist A simple Art-to-ASCII generator.
- ASCII Generator Online; generates ASCII art text in a variety of fonts.
- ASCII Signature Generator Figlet Server - Online Ascii Art Signature Generator
- ASCII Stereogram Image Generator Online; generates free ASCII stereograms
- ASCII Stereogram Movie Generator Online; generates free ASCII stereogram movies!
- ASCii.art 0.4 Freeware; An image bitmap to ASCII text converter. Supports conversion to colored ASCII using HTML color tags and features multiple image resize capabilities.
- ASCII Generator (ascgen) Freeware; A 32-bit Windows program that converts a large variety of images to ASCII art.
- ASCII Generator dotNET (ascgen) Open Source and improved version rewritten in C#
- Boxes GNU GPL; Draws ASCII art boxes around text. Useful for programmers.
- Figlet text generator FIGlet font generator
- Imagetrix With Imagetrix you can apply various images effects to alter images before converting the images to text.
- DanDirectory Freeware; A tool with heaps of features including an in-built HTML ASCII Generator
- IMG2ASCII GNU GPL; Transforms JPG or PNG images to Unicode or ASCII text online.
- JASCiiArt 0.1 Freeware; Java Ascii Art generator for Windows, Linux, Mac OS. Reads BMP, GIF, JPG and PNG files and is able to generate HTML, RTF, TXT, BMP, PNG, JPG output ascii art.
- Pic2ASCII Freeware; Transforms bitmaps to text (even analyzes symbol fonts). Reads BMP, GIF and JPG.
- png2mirc Public domain; converts PNG images to coloured mIRC ASCII art.
- Online JPG to ASCII converter
- Another online ASCII generator
ASCII art groups
ASCII art groups are defined as organized bodies of people dedicated to the purpose of creating ASCII text based artwork.
- 123
- Chemical Reaction
- Galza ASCII artists which predominantly make use of the IBM-PC Russian ASCII codepage
- Impure ASCII [1]
- The K5 ASCII reenactment players
- The lo0p Polish ASCII art group
- Mimic ASCII [2]
- Pen15: It's pronounced "Pen Fifteen"
- Remorse ASCII [3]
- Superior Art Creations
- alt.ascii-art, a Usenet newsgroup.
ASCII artscene portals
- Muffin A&A - ASCII Scene News, Interviews, Gallerys
- Boondocks - ASCII Scene Forums for PC and Amiga
- Downmix - ASCII, ANSI, & Hires Scene News & Releases
- Thuglife.org - ASCII Scene News, Releases, and Forum
Other links
- BBS Ads Collection v1.0 - One of the most complete BBS textmode ad collections, containing over 1.500 single ads from various platforms and scenes.
- Heister's Digital Art - ASCII page
- History of ASCII (Text) Art by Joan Stark (Mirror)
- ASCII Art Drawing Tutorials
- ASCII Arts Ring and Directory
- Star Wars (a 22-minute long ASCIImation movie: requires Java)
- telnet://towel.blinkenlights.nl (telnet version of the Star Wars movie)
- The.Matrix-ASCII The original Matrix film converted to ASCII animation (DVD ISO)
- More ascii art movies
- Japanese ASCII Art: requires Japanese font (available free from Windows/IE update, for Windows users)
- How to draw Mona-style AA (in Japanese)
- Illustrating software design using UnifiedModelingLanguage is discussed
- An ASCII art archive
- ASCII art cow collection
- ASCII Art Farts
- Actors' and musicians' portraits rendered in ASCII
- www.nerd-boy.net Nerd Boy, an ASCII comic strip by Joaquim Gandara.
- ASCII art dictionary Huge collection by Andreas Freise sorted by words (topics).
- ASCII art gallery by Joan Stark
- ASCII art by Sebastian Stoecker
- The ORIGINAL Ascii Airplane Collection
- Colin The Owl Several cartoons including Colin The Owl, Derren Brown's School Days, and ASCII 'interpretations' of classic video games.
- The canonical list of Ascii Cows
- ҈ Unicode art - an extended ASCII art form ҈
- Tutorial for Gamefaqs compatible ASCII
- Collection of non fixed-width artists
- KyleWiki:Ascii Art A collection of fixed-width ascii art
- AA underground thread @ hiding place (English version)
- The Matrix - Bullet Dodging Scene
- The best of ASCII art The best in 20 categories
- ASCII Font An ASCII Font for Windows