Sonic A: Enhance ment of image - to - ASH algorithm applied in new skool ASCII art generator

ABSTRACT: ASCII art are images that are illustrated using 7-bit characters (or better known as the printable or the keyboard characters). The Image-to-ASCII algorithm inputs an image and later displays its equivalent ASCII art. The purpose of the existing Image-to-ASCII converter is to create an ASCII art that closely resembles the source image. To do that, the pixels of the source image are read one-by-one for grayscalling the source image and later converted to the equivalent ASCII character based on the character mapping provided. The output is then displayed using fixed-width fonts. However, the aspect ratio of the output of this algorithm does not match that of the source image; the output elongates vertically and loses some of its details. That means that no matter what shape the source image is, the output will always stretch downwards. Also, some of the shades that are different in our perception appears the same when converted to ASCII art as a result of inflexible (in a way that the existing grayscaling methods does not have consistent result in different images) grayscaling method and limited usage of character sets. The enhanced algorithm is able to create an ASCII art output while keeping the aspect ratio of the source image intact. The grayscaling method as its subprocess is more flexible in conversion than the existing grayscaling method because color sensitivity of human perception is considered. Also, there exist pixel groupings to represent one character based on the character mapping table. This way, it results to an output that is proportional to the source image. In addition, there’s a new customized character sets for better mapping. With the said enhancements, the ASCII art output has better results.

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