ASCIIsee v1.0.1
Mac OSX (Windows coming soon)




Description
The concept of ASCII art is not a new one, but ASCIIsee provides something new. Like many other ASCII art applications, ASCIIsee can load an image of your choice and then convert it into an ASCII art image. However, unlike many other ASCII art applications, ASCIIsee has some distinct differences. Firstly, its output is in colour. Secondly, by utilizing the varying styles and weights of the fonts installed on your computer, you can use ASCIIsee to build your image from a custom message. The image below has been created with the words "This is a demonstration of ASCIIsee".



Up close, you can see the message, but from a distance you will see the image it makes. (No, this isn’t a picture of me.)

Please note that this image is quite small, which makes the type a little hard to read. Click here to see a larger version.

You can use ASCIIsee to create customized birthday or anniversary images, or for making posters that are guaranteed to be a talking point.

Features:
ASCIIsee will automatically scan through your loaded fonts to find which characters provide the best tonal qualities. There is also the ability to disable ‘picture’ fonts such as Zapf Dingbats and Wingdings to ensure that your embedded message is readable.

Output can be created in either ‘open’ form (as above) or ‘solid’ form. Solid images are made from a series of reversed-out blocks to help improve tonal range. You can also create images with a combination of the two methods. Click here for an example.

Final output can be saved in TIFF, JPEG or Photoshop file formats.

Instructions:
Click here for the complete online instructions.

Availability:
Use the link below to download ASCIIsee and operate it in ‘demo’ mode for as long as you want. Images created in demo mode are limited in size and have a watermark in the bottom-left corner. If you want to make use of the ‘unlimited’ features of ASCIIsee, you can purchase a registration code for $8 by clicking here.

Requirements:
ASCIIsee is Universal Binary and should run on all versions of Mac OSX. It is recommended that you have plenty of RAM (and time) if you intend building really big images. To get the best results from ASCIIsee, you should have quite a few fonts loaded on your computer. With literally hundreds of free fonts available for download, this should not be a difficult requirement.

Pricing:
The *unlimited version of ASCIIsee is available for $8 (US Dollars). Click here to purchase.



*The largest image size that ASCIIsee can output is approximately 9 feet wide by 9 feet high at 300dpi (if you have enough RAM). I realize this is not strictly speaking unlimited, but well beyond any practical requirements.