BMP to ASCII/UTF-8 Art CLI - DAI Practical Work 1

Gianni Cecchetto and Tschantz Nathan

This project is a command-line interface (CLI) tool that converts BMP images into grayscale and maps the grayscale values to ASCII or UTF-8 characters to create visual art. The CLI offers options to customize the output and is built using PicoCLI, a framework for command-line applications in Java.

Installation and Setup

Prerequisites

Ensure you have the following installed:

• Java 8 or later
• Maven

Build the Project

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/GianniCecchetto/dai-practical-work-1
cd dai-practical-work-1

2. Build the project using Maven:

./mvnw dependency:resolve clean install package

This will download dependencies, compile the code, and create a JAR file in the target/ directory.

Usage

Basic Usage

Run the CLI to convert a BMP image into a text-based version (ASCII or UTF-8) with default settings:

java -jar ./target/DAI-PW1-1.0-SNAPSHOT.jar <inputFilename> <outputFilename> -e <encoding>

Command Options

• -h, --help : Display the help message.
• -V, --version : Show version information.
• -c, --compression : specify a compression factor (integer).
• -r, --reverse : invert the grayscale (dark <-> light).
• -e, --encoding : Specify the text encoding for the conversion, either ASCII or UTF8 (required).

Positional Parameters

• inputFilename : The name of the BMP file you want to convert (required).
• outputFilename : The name of the file where the ASCII/UTF-8 art will be saved (required).

Example Commands

1. Convert a BMP file to ASCII art:

java -jar ./target/ImageToChar-1.0.jar image.bmp output.txt -e ASCII

1. Convert a BMP file to ASCII art and reverse the shades:

java -jar ./target/ImageToChar-1.0.jar image.bmp output.txt -e ASCII -r

2. Convert a BMP file to UTF-8 art and compress it by half:

java -jar ./target/ImageToChar-1.0.jar image.bmp output.txt -e UTF8 -c 2

These examples demonstrate how to convert an input BMP image into a text file using either ASCII or UTF-8 encoding.