pixterm

Render images in terminal using ANSI colors

TLDR

Display image in terminal

$ pixterm [image.png]

Scale to terminal width

$ pixterm -s [2] [image.png]

Set character cell size

$ pixterm -tc [2] -tr [6] [image.png]

Use specific color depth

$ pixterm -d [24] [image.png]

Dithering mode

$ pixterm -m [0] [image.png]

Output to file

$ pixterm [image.png] > [output.txt]

SYNOPSIS

pixterm [-s scale] [-tc cols] [-tr rows] [-d depth] [options] image

pixterm renders images directly in the terminal using ANSI escape codes and Unicode half-block characters. Each text character cell represents two vertical pixels, achieving higher resolution than character-only renderers.Color depth can be set to 24-bit true color for maximum quality or 8-bit (256 colors) for broader terminal compatibility. Dithering algorithms improve gradient and color transition rendering at the cost of processing time.Output is standard ANSI text that can be redirected to a file for later display. The scale and cell size parameters control how the image maps to terminal dimensions.

PARAMETERS

-s SCALE

Scale factor for the image.

-tc N

Terminal columns to use for rendering width.

-tr N

Terminal rows to use for rendering height.

-d DEPTH

Color depth: 8 (256 colors) or 24 (true color).

-m MODE

Dithering mode. Renders using block elements with different shades or ASCII characters.

-noresize

Don't resize image to fit terminal.

-matte COLOR

Background matte color for transparent images.

CAVEATS

Quality depends on terminal capabilities. Large images may be slow. Font affects appearance.

HISTORY

pixterm is a Go-based terminal image viewer. It provides high-quality image rendering using modern terminal capabilities.