# A computer program question **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 12, 2001, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725 "2001-04-12T15:25:36Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e19adc/32.png) [@McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/1 "2001-04-12T15:25:36Z")
I’m looking for a program which can make pictures of people from letters, numbers and computer symbols like **&^%#&\*^(** provided the user supplies a photograph. My question is twofold. 1. How does the program know where to draw boundaries between the eyes/nose/mouth etc… and translate them into symbols by which the user (me) can actually recognise the person in the photograph made up of letters, numbers and squiggles? 2. What is the program called? It sounds cool. ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/2 "2001-04-12T15:57:26Z")
Try searching for ‘ASCII art’ at [download.com](http://download.com) That’s what it is. ---
**Author:** ![muttrox](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a8b319/32.png) [@muttrox](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/muttrox)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/3 "2001-04-12T16:00:25Z")
I have no actual knowledge, not having seen one of these since the line printer days. However: my guess is that the way it works has nothing to do with borders. It looks at the pic, and abitrarily superimposes a grid on it (say 100x100). For each cell, it measure the overall darkness level. It then chooses a character (23#$&@!..) that most closely matches the darkness of that cell. Actually, it would probably do this based on relative darkness vs. a table of the relative darkness of the ascii characters. I would guess that is how they do the same effect these days with posters that are revealed to be collages of smaller photos when examined closely. See the Truman Show poster, or a bunch of good Star Wars ones. Again, I don’t know. And I don’t know where a program like this might be currently. ---
**Author:** ![Starbury](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Starbury](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Starbury)\ **Post date:** [April 12, 2001, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/4 "2001-04-12T16:48:20Z")
**Kyberneticist** used one of those programs to create his Smilie Painting (its in threadspotting, from a month or two ago), and he should know the answer to both your questions. Anyway, I don’t think he’ll be able to respond to you on here anymore, but his email address should be in his profile. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/5 "2001-04-13T04:15:32Z")
For Mac users: [FC Text-Picture does very nice ones in color and using small enough point-size fonts to provide you with a lot of detail.](http://hyperarchive.lcs.mit.edu/HyperArchive/Archive/comm/bbs/text-picture-113-fc2.hqx). ---
**Author:** ![handy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5a626/32.png) [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2001, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/6 "2001-04-13T15:18:18Z")
I used a program, GIFTOASCII which also take a picture & turns it into a text picture. ---
**Author:** ![Napier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Napier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Napier)\ **Post date:** [April 14, 2001, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-computer-program-question/61725/7 "2001-04-14T12:53:02Z")
Forgive the hyjacking, but I wish I could find a program that does a DIFFERENT conversion from graphics files to ASCII text. I want to get a text file that is a list of the row, column, red, green, and blue values for each pixel in the image. I want to be able to analyze images using a spreadsheet, say. There is a program available on the web called, I think, ImageMagick, that does many translations including this one. Problem is, it requires NT, which I only have at work. There is another program that does this, written by a co-worker of mine, but it’s not legal to use outside of my workplace. I am partway up the energy ramp to figuring out how to do this myself, starting from one of the simpler graphics formats, but they are all at least a little complicated. For example, the simplest graphics format I have found still uses run length encoding and a palette. So for now I am just using the things I have access to where I have access to them. Anybody heard of this problem being solved already?