LineGIFscii... a line art GIF2ASCII converter

I finally got it going and the results are as expected... messy.

All outputs are 40x25 characters, because it nabs the info from the screen
and the screen is 40x25 :o)

First, a GIF with a deliberate slash up in the topleft (I drew a diagonal
line exactly for that purpose) and my initials in a box a bit off-centre:

\                                       
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                        
                                        
      \////////////////////////         
      /                        \        
      / |         \|     |     \        
      / ||       \||    \\/    \        
      / | |     \| |    / /    \        
      / |  |   \|  |    | /    \        
      / |   | \|   |   \_  /   \        
      / |    ||    |   \////   \        
      / |          |   \   /   \        
      / |          |  /     \  \        
      / |          |  |     |  \        
      / |          |  _     /  \        
      / |          | /       / \        
      / |          | |       | \        
      /////////////////////////\        
                                        
                                        
                                        
As you can see, the results arn`t brilliant. This is maily due to the fact
that when the program can`t decide which of two characters to use, it
decides at random... and that seems to happen quite a lot. You can of course
fiddle with them, so for simple pics it could make a good starting point.

                                        
      .------------------------.        
      |                        |        
      | .          .     |     |        
      | |\        /|    | |    |        
      | | \      / |    | |    |        
      | |  \    /  |    | |    |        
      | |   \  /   |   |   |   |        
      | |    \/    |   |---|   |        
      | |          |   |   |   |        
      | |          |  |     |  |        
      | |          |  |     |  |        
      | |          |  |     |  |        
      | |          | |       | |        
      |                        |        
      '------------------------' er, not exactly a work of art :o/

Next i tried a simple drawing I did of a castle. This was the output:
   //\ /////\            /\ \/\ //      
   / | / // |            \/ / | \       
   / ||_ || |            \_\\ |\\       
   /        |            \              
   /        |////////////\              
   /        |            \              
   /        | /       \  \              
   /        | |       /  \              
   /        | |       \  \              
   /        |    \//     \              
   /        |   \| _     \              
   /        |   /   |    \              
   /        |   /   |    \              
   /        |   /   |    \              
   /        |   /   |    \              
   /////////|||||||||||||\////////      

The right wall kinda went missing :o)

It made an ok job of two of the walls though, and of my pointed turrets.
| characters tend to give it a bit of trouble because there are no versions
of it for the right and left of the character box and the program confuses
itself trying to decide on an alternative (usually one of the slashes)

I had the idea to try something '3D' so I drew out a pretty crappy cube in
paint shop pro and chucked that into it:
                \///\/                  
             \//|    |\\                
          \//|          _\/             
          |//          \/\|             
          /  |//     / _  /             
          /     _/\ _     /             
          |       |       /             
          \       |       \             
          /       |       \             
                  |       _             
           /      |      \              
           \      |      /              
            _//   |   \/\               
              |\/ | \/|                 
                _/|\_     

The weird gradient diagonals gave it some greif too it seems.  Us humans
have enough trouble with gradients, so I guess this is a pretty good try for
a program that only has 6 characters to choose from. One thing I did notice
is that even though I`ve given it the power to, it never uses the - or "
characters - I think that`s something I need to look into.

Finally, I thought I`d do something totally pointless... I took a photo
jpg, converted it to two colours once I`d run a line art filter over it in
PSP5, then I run that through lGIFscii. The results are unrecognisable, not
surprisingly.



             \|||               /       
                             \\ /|      
        ////                 /  \/      
       // \///              \|\//\ \/   
/    _|/   \|/              |//||/ _|   
___ /\|/\ /_|/// / // / // | | //|      
 |\/ |/ |/ _ // / /\    / \_ |\ ||      
/     |\     ||/    //  _\_  ||/|       
\ / _/|      //|\     \//_  /_|\/_      
     _/ / |   _/    _   |  /|   |       
//\ _// __|//\ _       /                
     /| ///_\_|                         
     | \/|//|                           
  | | /__|///   |                       
  \|  _|_|_\\                           
  |  |///|/\/                 \         
/   //|/||/|\|    |                     
/   _\_/_| //  /              /         
_       / _ /   /            /          
                                        
                                        
It was actually a girl on the phone originally. You can just make out her
eyes and head at the top left (kinda) and a sort of nose.

        ////     "-. Head
       // \///      \
/    _|/   \|/       |
___ /\|/\ /_|///    <--- Eyes
 |\/ |/ |/ _ //     <--- nose and the underscore is the mouth top.
/     |\     ||  ___/

    ^
  Phone

It actually came out much better than I expected :o)

I doubt anyone would want this program, since the output is dreadful... but
incase anyone does just email me at me address in my sig (reply addy is
Rot13`d) and request it!

BTW, it takes a 256 colour GIF87a image of no bigger than 320x200, which
only features 2 colours (I know that`s silly, but well, er, yeah) and
interlacing is supported.

Seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
Martin.

|\/| _..__|_o._   /\_|_| o._  _   mart.atkins@--
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