cam_ascii

📸 Real-time ASCII art rendering from your webcam, right in your terminal.

This project captures video from your webcam and renders it as live ASCII art in your terminal.

Demo

Here's a sample of what the output looks like:

About The Project

cam_ascii is a simple command-line tool written in Rust. It uses the nokhwa crate to access the computer's camera and the image crate for processing. Each frame from the camera is converted to grayscale, resized, and then its pixel brightness is mapped to a set of ASCII characters. The result is a live, animated ASCII video stream printed directly to your console.

Features

• Real-time Conversion: Captures video from your default webcam and converts it to ASCII on the fly.
• Terminal-Based: Runs entirely within your terminal, no GUI needed.
• Performance Metrics: Displays the current Frames Per Second (FPS).
• Simple & Hackable: A straightforward implementation in a single file, easy to modify and experiment with.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, ensure you have the following installed:

• Rust and Cargo
• A connected webcam

Getting Started

To get a local copy up and running, follow these simple steps.

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/thecoder-co/ascii-cam.git
   cd cam_ascii

2. Run the application For the best performance, run the application in release mode:

   cargo run --release

3. Exit the application Press Ctrl+C in the terminal to stop the program.

Configuration

You can easily tweak the output by modifying a few values in src/main.rs:

// src/main.rs

fn main() -> Result<()> {
    // ...

    // You can change the characters used for the ASCII ramp.
    // Goes from darkest to brightest.
    let ramp = "@#%WX8B&$M0QOZ*+i!;:,'. ";
    let ramp_chars: Vec<char> = ramp.chars().collect();

    // ...
    loop {
        // ...
        // You can change the output width and whether the colors are inverted.
        let ascii_frame = convert_image_to_ascii(&img, 1000, true, &ramp_chars)?;
        // ...
    }
}

• ramp: The string of characters used for rendering, from darkest to brightest.
• target_width: The width (in characters) of the ASCII output.
• invert: A boolean (true or false) to invert the brightness mapping.

License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for more information.

Copyright (c) 2025 ABIMBOLA, Idunnuoluwa

Acknowledgements

This project is made possible by the fantastic work of the Rust community and these key libraries:

• nokhwa for camera controls.
• image-rs for image processing.