Creating ASCII art images

ASCII art is a textual representation of an image

History:

In the late 1960's a committee standardized the characters that were used on early computers. It was around then that people began trying to make pictures from very non-visual computer systems. Computers were performing text-only operations. This committee was known as the American Standard Code for Information Interchange (ASCII). Computers and printers in those days had no color and no real graphic printing ability. People started arranging letters and symbols to make all sorts of shapes to form images and banners that they could hang for celebrations. ASCII art is interesting because you can both read the text and see the image at the same time. In other cases the shapes are abstract and you have to make out what the artist is trying to convey.

1) Go straight to BG-ascii tutorial

2) Go straight to MOS-ascii tutorial

3) Go straight to Multi-ascii tutorial

Text roses I quickly created in notepad

Even though it is somewhat irrational, people often tend to make a mental link between the words composing the picture and the picture itself. So a picture of shiny fruit made up of many tiny words saying "Fresh" might lead one to believe these two ideas go together. This art form of letters making up pictures goes back centuries where religious groups used to write biblical text that made images representing their faith. This endearing need to express ideas in visual form lives in every system that doesn't support graphics. That's because many of us are visual people at heart. This ASCII art form evolved into a colored text called ANSI or extended ASCII around the 1980's. Meanwhile computer folks awaited graphics.

Today computing is a graphical experience. We have amazing graphics but text based artwork survives if just to pay tribute to the old technique. One can see ASCII art today in chat rooms where people push the boundaries of text until some programmer finally adds graphics or avatar features. For instance, here is an example of a simple rose displayed in a chat room = @}-->--

My female vampire character done in ASCII with MOSASCII-M2 software

CREATING ASCII ART:

I know what you're thinking...

......................................................................................................................................................... ......OOOOO........................OOOOO......OOOOOOO......OOOOO........................OOOOO...... .......OOOOO......................OOOOO.....OOOO..OOOO.....OOOOO......................OOOOO....... ........OOOOO.......OOO.......OOOOO...OOOO....OOOO.....OOOOO.......OOO.....OOOOO.... .........OOOOO.....OOOO.....OOOOO...OOOO......OOOO....OOOOO.....OOOO....OOOOO.... ..........OOOOO...OOOOO...OOOOO...OOOO......OOOO....OOOOO...OOOOO...OOOOO..... ...........OOOOOOOO..OOOOOOOO...OOOO......OOOO....OOOOOOOO..OOOOOOOO....... ............OOOOOOO....OOOOOOO.....OOOO....OOOO........OOOOOOO....OOOOOOO......... .............OOOOOO......OOOOOO........OOOOOOOOO..........OOOOOO......OOOOOO........... ..............OOOOO........OOOOO.............OOOOOOO..............OOOOO........OOOOO.............. .......................................................................................................................................................

Okay, how do you actually create ASCII artwork? There is the traditional and now the new automated methods. For the traditional ASCII artwork one opens up a simple text editor like notepad for windows. Programs like notepad use fixed-width fonts. Fixed-width fonts means the letters have the same proportional spacing between each letter and number. Without proper spacing the artwork won't come together the way it should. That is also why pasting ASCII art into a non-fixed-width program or editor will destroy what you've made. Try using a fixed width font that looks like type-writer text as seen above on the flower examples.

Below I've created a partial ASCII table. Here is a neat trick to understand ASCII codes. In notepad for windows if you know the ASCII decimal number, you can hold down the ALT on the keyboard and type that number. You must then release the ALT key before seeing the character. But there appears the character without typing it directly! To try an example, begin by holding down the ALT key and typing 123 in notepad. Release the ALT key and the "{" character should appear. The idea in artwork is to use the ASCII codes to duplicate the shapes and angles in the objects one wishes to draw. Try this again with the code 169. What happens? Now start practicing artwork with the most common characters below.

\ / ( slashes for curves )

o ( O for rounded edges)

| (shift and then pipe above Enter key)

_ (shift the minus key creates the tops surfaces)

The more you construct with ASCII characters the faster you'll become at making creative images. You'll need that artistic etch-a-sketch sort of mentality to make more complex images. There are some very talented artists out there that push the boundaries of ASCII art.

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A sailboat done in ASCII characters using BG-ASCII v1.32 software

BG- ASCII Tutorial:

If you're like me you'll enjoy the automated methods for creating even more complex ASCII images. Both methods are fun to try at least once. By then you'll be addicted to one or both. The BG_Ascii program emulates the old style of ASCII artwork as you can see above and the new html-based color types too. What you'll do is bring a picture into BG-ASCII and then it will convert the brightness of items in the image into text automatically.

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Click here to Download BG Ascii v1.32 by Boris Glazer
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1) Install the BG-ASCII program provided above. This program works faster if you start with a relatively small image. It did fine with larger images but took quite a while to process them. Additionally an image with good contrast between the foreground and background is desirable. The nice part about the BG-ASCII program is that you don't need to install it as it is small. You can run it from the folder you extract it into or make a shortcut to your desktop.

2) Start the BG-ASCII software

3) Left-click on the PIC button in the top-left of the screen to load a picture

4) Click the Open button on the next window that pops up. Then search for the picture of your choice.

5) Next left-click the Halftone radio button

6) Left-click the GO button to start the ascii creation process. If you choose color here you must save out as an HTML file.

7) Left-click to close the secondary window with the image in it. On the window with the ascii art you can change the font along with font-size and watch in real time to see if you like the changes. It's a bit of a clunky way to scaling but it works.

8) Press the Save button in the upper left of the screen.

9) On the Save-As box be sure to change the "Save as type" option at the bottom of that window to "plain text"

10) Find the file you just saved with Windows Explorer and view it with notepad. How does it look?

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A garden rose done in ASCII with MOSASCII-M2 software

MosASCII-M2 Tutorial:

A free program I use does ASCII the automated way and excels more at color (html based ascii) than drawing with traditional black and white text. This is another creative way of making new images. Download the program MosAscii-M2 . It does a great job and has a smooth interface. Below are some simple instructions in case you get tripped up on simple understandings as I did.

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Click here to Download MosAscii-m2 by Robert DeFusco
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1) First select your image with the browse button on the far right. Then enlarge or maximize the program window to full size.

2) If your image is larger than the screen you'll need to shrink it down. On the first tab at the bottom of the screen choose the shrink button. Then choose resample which will knock it down in size. You will have to do this a few times to get the results needed. The image will seem really small on the screen but this is no indication of the actual image it will create. As you get smaller the program will show sizes next to your image sample like 1280x1024 resolution. The flower image above is 640x480. Don't be afraid to keep resampling downward until you get what you want.

3) The work flow idea of this program is to step through the tabs on the top of the program to select your options. The only mandatory one at first is the last or third tab. There you will let the program know where to save your file with the Browse button across from filename row. This configuration will fill your pictures with binary ones and zeros from the default on the second tab. Now go to where you saved the HTML file on your hard-disk and see how you did. It's where you saved it when changing the last tab. The process is that simple!

4) As an extra you'll want to customize your ASCII text by going to the second tab and pasting in your own text and maybe changing the font size. You'll change the mode on the second tab to "custom text". Then paste your own text into the given box. Then go to the third tab yet again and run the 'Create Mosaic' option. Results from this program can be screen captured or used as a webpage. However, pasting them to notepad for windows will only get you the text without the color that made up the images. Have fun and enjoy making some ASCII artwork!

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MultiAsciiArt Tutorial:

This next ASCII program is also freeware but it's in Spanish. Not to worry as you can do the job by only using the top three iconic buttons. In the top left there is an icon for opening the image, the second is for turning into Ascii, and the last of the three is the Save As . I believe you will like the results.

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Click here to Download MultiAscii v0.62 by Alejandro Lamas
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This program also wins major cool points for another feature I have not seen in other software for making ascii. There is a Minimum and Maximum slider button that will help you scale your ascii art. If you take a large image you can use the min-max slider to minimize the size of your ascii graphic. The fact you don't have to install MultiAsciiArt is also terrific. Simply run it from the folder you place it in. MultiAscii makes ASCII movies and animations like animated GIFs. Enjoy!

Squint and this is a beautiful rose done with MultiAsciiArt

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The word "Tracy" done in ASCII art

*~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~* Written Feb08 and updated Apr09 by Tracy Rose *~*:._.:*~*:._.:*~*