Add to iTunes | Add to YouTube | Add to Google | RSS Feed

Don’t adjust your monitor. That really is me in this video, and I look this way on purpose. You, too, can stream yourself live using ASCII characters… if you have OS X. ASCII Projektor is a free program that runs on OS X. ASCII Projektor presents films by drawing them with characters.

The application accepts films from the computer’s camera as well as from QuickTime files. You can set up which characters and fonts are used to present the film. To spice things up a little, you can draw the converted version of the film on top of a distorted version of the original image.

There are several different nifty things you can do to change how your image/video looks. You can adjust the color, saturation, source or texture string, font, contrast, and even the number of lines. Playing around with this is much more fun than any video game… isn’t it?

Want to embed this video on your own site, blog, or forum? Use this code or download the video:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Qg6zGQ4Cbk"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6Qg6zGQ4Cbk" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

• What is ASCII Art?

http://live.pirillo.com/ – I remember my first experience with ASCII art: it was a simple smiley face ":)" and I had no idea what it is: after asking what it was someone told me to turn my head to the side. Lo and behold, it was a small smiley face.

The smiley face is a really small form of ASCII art, and years ago it was a skill practiced by many people: the skill of taking fixed-width characers and making an image from it.

Nowadays ASCII art is almost a lost art. Not nearly as many people practice it today as they used to, but Chris (no, not Chris Pirillo) still practices. He was one of the first people involved with the ASCII art "movement" – he still provides ASCII art and continues to create more ASCII artwork.

If you’re not particularly artistic you can download Jave, which will create ASCII art that you can create in a text file.

The key to ASCII art is to use a fixed-width font: every character takes up as much space as every other character – a period takes up as much space as Q, and so on.

Fhoto2Text allows you to upload an image which will convert it to ASCII art.

Do you like ASCII art? Do you have any ASCII art you want to share?

Want to embed our What is ASCII Art? video in your blog? Use this code:

<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/A27vS2rIQWQ"></aram><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/A27vS2rIQWQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"></embed></object><br /><a href="http://chris.pirillo.com/">Chris</a> | <a href="http://live.pirillo.com/">Live Tech Support</a> | <a href="http://media.pirillo.com/">Video Help</a> | <a href="http://feeds.pirillo.com/ChrisPirilloShow">Add to iTunes</a>

Formats available: MPEG4 Video (.mp4), Flash Video (.flv), MP3 Audio (.mp3), Microsoft Video (.avi)

• How to Turn Yourself into ASCII Art