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IMG2ANS

TL;DR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sJiqoQ2E0M8

NOTE THE GUI IS NOT READY! ONLY THE INDIVIDUAL CLI PROGRAMS ARE!

IMG2ANS converts pixels into textmode art using ANSI codes.

Why did I make this? There are no native ANSI editors on iOS at ALL. The use of a remote desktop/VNC while on iOS is possible but it's just horribly unergonomic. So, I had an idea. What if I used pixel art, and the DOS EGA/CGA 16 color palette to make the pixel art, and then somehow turn it into ANSI? Voila.

Example Pixel Art created on iPad laying in bed because I'm old:

Alt text

Post conversion to ANSI (Left = after conversion | Right = after refining):

Alt text

Foodies pixel art

Alt text

Example of Foodies (RGB 8px) conversion

Alt text

Close-up of how to refine with shading, etc:

Alt text

Now you can use the EGA/CGA Palette and any pixel art editor on your devices, then convert the pixel art into text mode, and finish and refine it in editors.

IMG2ANS isn't the first of it's kind (GIF2ANS, etc. already exist), but I am proud of the quality of conversion. It can do a 1:1 conversion for RGB or 16 color EGA/CGA in both 8px font (80x50 mode), and 16px (80x25 mode).

One neat thing that this does is it actually uses the ANSI block characters intelligently. Being an ANSI artist I am very picky about how I draw, and wanted to make it so that this tool would generate really easy to draw-after kinds of ANSIs.

IMG2ANS uses the following characters:

  • █ BLOCK CHARACTER - Full block foreground
  • ▀ HALF BLOCK Top FG Bottom BG
  • ▄ HALF BLOCK Top BG Bottom FG
  • {SPACE}

in 80x25 16px font mode only

So as an ANSI artist you can use stuff like ALT-U to pickup sensible colors, and it uses normal blocks, vs. just some weird machine-specific converter where everything is iCE colors even when it doesn't have to be, and the blocks don't make a lot of sense when you draw post conversion. Believe me it was a lot less easy to draw after conversion before! Everything used iCE colors and the background and foreground colors were all whacked and inverted. I fixed that.

Also since I know this will be helpful for BBS SysOps I have created a method which does not use iCE colors as much as possible. It will use a black where the iCE was required (if it can't compensate with lower intensity colors).

The GUI in the screenshot is a WIP front-end for IMG2ANS and is created using InForm-PE. The IMG2ANS GUI is not done, but I will chip away at it. InForm-PE is done and ready for use however. :) Thanks @a740g!

TL;DR

The end goal is to have one big GUI program that has options that make the separate .BAS file programs unnecessary.

IMG2ANS GUI

Cross Platform Support:

IMG2ANS is written using QB64-PE and as a result is 100% cross platform compatible with:

  • Linux
  • OSX
  • Windows

Input Image Formats Supported:

IMG2ANS supports any QB64-PE supported image formats which includes:

  • jpg, png, tga, bmp, psd, gif, pcx, svg, qoi

Output Image Formats Supported:

IMG2ANS will save text files according to the following output types (all of which will embed the font and width and height in the sauce record in addition to the standard sauce stuff like group, author, comments, etc. if it is enabled):

  • 16 color ANSI (8px and 16px fonts)
  • 24 Bit ANSI (8px and 16px fonts)

Until the GUI is done...

You can use each one of these separately:

USAGE FOR SEPARATE PROGRAMS

For each program, just compile it and run it. I will create a release that will have native binaries for Linux, OSX, and Windows soon. Until then, just get QB64-PE, install it, build it, etc.

USAGE FOR GUI

  • Run the program
  • Browse for image files to convert
  • Optionally convert the source image colors to a palette
  • Optionally resize / crop the image
  • Enter sauce information (and optionally include it)
  • Choose Font Options
  • Choose Color Options
  • Decide where you want to save exported converted file
  • Click Export

NEW FEATURES COMING SOON (AS PART OF GUI):

  • Choose 9PX Width
  • Conversion Pipeline: Open -> Palletize -> Crop/Resize
  • Palettize can use any GPL palette and user palettes
  • Resize / Crop nudge with arrows, resize with SHIFT
  • Source Image: Brightness, Contrast, and Posterize in-line edits
  • Pannable image boxes, zoomable with mousewheel
  • Optional image format export using different export filename extensions
  • Palette colors preview for loaded palettes
  • Multiple Palette Support including user palettes in GPL format
    • 1 BIT (2)
    • CGA MODE 1 (4)
    • CGA MODE 2 (4)
    • CGA MODE 3 (4)
    • CGA MODE 4 (4)
    • EGA (16) [DEFAULT]
    • VGA (256)
    • Teletext (8)
    • APPLE ][ (16)
    • C=64 (16)
    • BBC MICRO (16)
    • ZX SPECTRUM (15)
    • AMSTRAD CPC (26)
    • ATARI 2600 NTSC (128)
    • Intellivision (16)
    • Fairchild Channel F (4)
    • SECAM (8)
    • Nintendo NES (54)
    • Nintendo Gameboy (4)
    • Nintendo SNES (256)
    • SEGA Master System (64)
    • PICO-8 (16)
    • ANSI32 (32)
    • CGA32 (32)
  • Configuration:
    • Image Editor - used to edit the images in each phase of pipeline
    • ANSI Editor - used to edit the end result ANSI
    • User Palettes Directory
    • User Favorite Directories

OPTimized

These new versions generate optimized and compressed ANSI files.

8px Font (80x50 mode)

This is the closest you can get to 1:1 for pixel art conversion. The converted pixel is turned into a 8x8 square character, and intended to be viewed with an 8px font (sauce configuration saved).

16px Font (80x25 mode)

In this mode, pixel art can be converted perfectly 1:1 but the versatility required by the 16x8px font helps so it uses full block, and half blocks to convert. It does it's best to minimize the requirement of iCE Colors.

iCE Colors (High Intensity BG no Blink)

In traditional text mode (SCREEN 0), high intensity background colors are not allowed and will instead cause the text to blink. In iCE Color mode, the blinking is disabled. In QB64 this is the same thing that happens when you use _NOBLINK in text screen modes.

RGB 24 Bit Color

If this is unchecked, the palette to be used will be the DOS CGA/EGA 16 color palette.

If this is checked, the palette is unrestricted and CSI;r;g;bt method of color change is used instead.

In RGB 24 bit, you can convert any pixel art to ANSI text mode 1:1 regardless of the source color palette.

If you are not using RGB 24 bit mode, the source image must use the DOS CGA/EGA 16 color palette, or colors will not map properly for conversion.

SAUCE Support

Sauce support includes:

  • Font size
  • iCE Colors ON/OFF
  • Canvas Width
  • Canvas Height
  • Author
  • Title
  • Group
  • Comments
  • Date

COMPILING AND BUILDING / INSTALLATION

After cloning this repo, run the following:

git submodule init
git submodule update

Now you can build it.

Thank you and attribution

MASSIVE Thanks:

To a740g (Samuel Gomes) who I consider a dear friend and has not only provided excellent friendship and fellowship but also great guidance and mentoring for QB64 and programming in general.

Check out his Toolbox64 and ANSIPrint stuff! It's rad!

GIMP Color Palette spec: https://testing.developer.gimp.org/core/standards/gpl/