ASCII Camera live art

Convert live camera feed into real-time ASCII art.

Features

• Live ASCII Conversion: Real-time conversion of camera input to ASCII art
• Terminal Display: View ASCII art directly in your terminal
• Save Frames: Save ASCII art frames to text files
• Simple Controls: Press 'q' to quit, 's' to save current frame

Requirements

• Python 3.7+
• OpenCV (cv2)
• NumPy

Installation

1. Install dependencies:

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. Run the script:

python ascii_camera.py

Usage

Once the script is running:

• Terminal display will show live ASCII art representation of your camera feed
• Press 's' to save the current ASCII frame to a text file
• Press 'q' to quit the application
• Adjust terminal width/font size for better ASCII art display

Controls

Key	Action
q	Quit application
s	Save current frame as ASCII art to text file

Notes

• Works best in a terminal with dark background
• For best results, use a monospace font (e.g., Courier, Consolas)
• ASCII frames are saved with timestamps in the format: ascii_frame_XXXX.txt
• The camera feed is flipped horizontally for mirror effect
• Processing is optimized for 80-character width display

Troubleshooting

• Camera not opening: Ensure your camera is connected and not in use by other applications
• Garbled display: Try resizing your terminal window
• Slow performance: Reduce terminal width or use a lower resolution camera

Example Output

recording_2026-02-18_19.46.40.mp4