The project wants to generate ASCII Art from different inputs with C++ by using OpenCV Library.
Project was developed in Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 using VSCode which we strongly recommend and can be installed as follows with snap:
sudo snap install --classic codeAs the code was developed in four hands we used Git as our distributed version control system and the project was stored in GitHub.
Choose a file where you want to store the project and clone it with the following commands:
sudo apt-get install git-all
git clone https://github.com/tr0fin0/ASCII-Art.gitSFML provides a simple interface to the various components of your PC, to ease the development of games and multimedia applications. It is composed of five modules: system, window, graphics, audio and network.
sudo apt-get install libsfml-devThe project was developed in Ubuntu. Following the install OpenCV documentation, open a terminal (shift + alt + t) and type the following:
sudo apt updatesudo apt install git
sudo apt install -y g++
sudo apt install -y cmake
sudo apt install -y makeNavegate to the home/ folder and type:
git clone https://github.com/opencv/opencv.git
git -C opencv checkout 4.xIn the home/ folder type:
mkdir -p build && cd build
cmake ../opencv
make -j4-j4 means that the OpenCV library will be compile using 4 cores. During installation -j8, using 8 cores, was tried and it took longer to compile, therefore we recommend to stay with the 4 cores option.
Finally type the following command to install the OpenCV library:
sudo make installGTK 4.0 and GTKmm 3.0 were used for the project's GUI. Open a terminal and type:
sudo apt updatesudo apt install libgtk-4-dev
sudo apt install libgtkmm-3.0-devDuring the development two other libraries were used to convert ASCII encoding into UTF8:
sudo apt-get install dbus-x11
sudo apt-get install --reinstall dconf-gsettings-backend dconf-service
sudo apt-get install libuchardet-devIn ASCII-ART directory type make on a terminal window.
After completing make the MainWindow will open:
Pressing the getIP button will set the text on the button to your machine's IP address.
Note: if you are using cabled internet there will be 2 IP address and the project will not be able to choose the correct address. Therefore the projet is intended to be used on Wi-Fi connection only.
Pressing the convert button will open the following dialog window for the user to select her/his desired image file.
Note: if the extension of the file chosen is not supported the window will convert nothing.
After choosing a valid input the ConvertFile window will display the selected image scaling it to fit the avaleable space on the window.
Note: images too small or to big may be distorted while scaling.
After pressing the convert button on the ConvertFile window a preview of the image in ASCII Art will be displayed and a PNG file will be saved on the same folder as the selected file.
Note: after converting this window won't have any purpose and may be closed.
After pressing the webcam button on the MainWindow the following window will be displayed showing the computer's webcam converted to ASCII Art as shown:
Note: great for photos.
Finally there will be the entryIP entry and the connect button there will be used to connect two computers on the same network to one and other to exchange webcam video converted in ASCII Art.
If no address is given as entry, entry empty, and connect is pressed, this computer will be consider as host of the communication and will wait for a client to start the conversation.
If the same IP address of this computer is given as entry and connect is pressed, this computer will be consider as a host of the communication and will wait for a client to start the conversation.
If another valid IP addres is given as entry, in the form of "147.250.110.110", and connect is pressed, this computer will be consider as a client of the comunication and will connect with host that has the same IP address given as entry.
When the computer is the client the following screen will be shown:
When the computer is the host the following screen will be shown:
Note: as threads are used for communication the quit button was removed from the windows to make sure that the threads will be killed after the end meeting button press.
This project had incremental goals:
-
Open a file in:
- PNG;
- JPG;
- JPEG;
converting into an ASCII Art and saving in PNG;
-
Use real-time input from the computer's webcam;
-
Video Conference between 2 computers in ASCII;
LinkedIn
GitHubWe greatly appreciate our IN204 teachers at ENSTA:
- Bruno Monsuez
- Jean-Baptiste Laurent
More information in the webpage.