8 ms·

Show HN: NCurses Terminal Webcam

110 points by CSDude 12y ago

Taylorious 12y ago
This is pretty awesome. I'm surprised that you can get such a detailed and responsive image with just different characters. Very cool.
- userbinator 12y ago
  YouTube did something like this a few years ago for April Fools. I think on a modern Retina-level display it would look even more impressive due to the higher resolution and smaller character-pixels. Also reminds me of this: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption
  - mzs 12y ago
    Forget about retina displays, imagine on a VT340* in glorious sixels! https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel *Or even xterm compiled with sixels support ;)
hardwaresofton 12y ago
Please add encryption (on by default), sound, and hook this up to PGP so that it can be skype for hackers (and I don't mean just crackers, I mean in the most general sense) Just in case it wasn't clear - I think this is awesome.
- CSDude 12y ago
  Well, I was going to do it (2 years ago as you can see in repo), but somehow I forgot. Now, I made NodeJS fork of it: https://github.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam-chat https://github.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam-chat to turn it into a chat
- Crito 12y ago
  Hack it up with existing software. Shunt the output across the network with ssh, perhaps into a shared tmux session. That takes care of text chat too. (Of course libcaca kills the tmux session, so you might have to drop the frame-rate or keep the tmux panes small). If you want to keep it hacky and horrible, have each side also set up pulseaudio and use it's networking capabilities over ssh to make each others computers the sink for your microphones. Or use existing proper VoIP software, if you want to be practical and boring.
chjj 12y ago
MPlayer can also do this. Something like this should work as an example: $ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 15 -vo caca
- pcmonk 12y ago
  For the record, that's not pure terminal (it opens up another window). This project works even in a bare vterm. I'd love to see this work over ssh.
  - chjj 12y ago
    It will draw an X11 window if there is an X display. Unset DISPLAY and it will render in the terminal: $ DISPLAY= mplayer ... Updated command for clarity (might want to fullscreen your terminal with this): $ DISPLAY= mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 15 -vo caca
    - pcmonk 12y ago
      Sweet, I didn't realize that. Sadly, the result flashes on and off and is essentially unusable for me (either in xterm or a TTY on Slackware64 14.0). I can tell it's working, though. This also seems to work over ssh, though, which is cool.
      - nitrogen 12y ago
        Add the -quiet option to mplayer.
        pcmonk 12y ago
        That fixed it. Thanks.
  - mpyne 12y ago
    I can confirm it works fine at a raw terminal, even on Linux TTY. You might have to unset DISPLAY as recommended in the other comment. One big tip for that mode of mplayer, use the 'd' key to switch dithering modes. Keep switching until you get to Floyd-Steinberg for the best quality (IMHO).
13throwaway 12y ago
Forget looking at my ugly face, how do I watch movies in my terminal?
- chjj 12y ago
  You're in luck: $ mplayer -vo caca my-movie.mp4
- NAFV_P 12y ago
  > Forget looking at my ugly face, how do I watch movies in my terminal? Everything looks beautiful when rendered in ASCII.
- broodbucket 12y ago
  You can change VLC's output target to the terminal. From what I understand it's only written single-threaded so it lags horribly.
a3n 12y ago
The submitted program, and the mplayer incantations in the threads, are the most delightful things I've seen all day.
CSDude 12y ago
If you want to get full performance, use xterm, gnome-terminal and others are very slow. Colorful one uses only 6^3 colors but it looks nice: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam/master/colorful.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webca... (It is currently night here mywebcam sucks on night)
techwizrd 12y ago
It's still using the old OpenCV calls, so I did a quick port to OpenCV 2. https://github.com/techwizrd/terminal-webcam https://github.com/techwizrd/terminal-webcam
b0z0 12y ago
Interesting - I just made something exactly like this (screenshot looks exactly the same): https://github.com/billyeh/termchat https://github.com/billyeh/termchat! I even had to publish a Node package to do it (pixelr). Except it's got a chat function with other users as well :)
cont4gious 12y ago
great work! i did one the runs on osx a couple years ago. might be broken now, haven't run it in a while. https://github.com/helloandre/cam2ascii https://github.com/helloandre/cam2ascii
EnigmaCurry 12y ago
OK, now how can I make this loopback such that this is what the people I'm talking to on google hangouts sees? EDIT: duh, hangouts has a "share window" feature .. this is awesome!
jsilence 12y ago
See also hasciicam by Jaromil. https://github.com/jaromil/HasciiCam https://github.com/jaromil/HasciiCam
paulannesley 12y ago
See also: https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam
mrucci 12y ago
Cool. You can do it also with `vlc` and the `-V aa` (ascii) or `-V caca` (colored ascii) video output in the console. Can play any videos or stream the webcam: vlc -V aa file.avi vlc -V aa v4l2:///dev/video0
TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago
Reminds me of AAlib and bb, the portable demo.
- Argorak 12y ago
  To go up the stack a bit, it reminds me of TTYQuake. (original website gone :( ) http://ingles.homeunix.net/presos/quake/4/ttyscreen.html http://ingles.homeunix.net/presos/quake/4/ttyscreen.html
zachlatta 12y ago
See also https://github.com/zfogg/ascii-chat https://github.com/zfogg/ascii-chat
dhotson 12y ago
Neat! I made something similar for OSX: https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam / Screencast: https://asciinema.org/a/7301 https://asciinema.org/a/7301 I used halftone characters to do "dithering". Someone forked and updated it to work with iTerm2's 24 bit colour support: https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/items/063S2A0b2b3w3T2Z3J0q/Image%202013.11.25%2022%3A22%3A23.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/items/063S2A0b2b3w3T2Z3J0q/... .. not bad!
suprjami 12y ago
This isn't mine, but it does a similar sort of thing in browser. It's actually a port of libcaca to JavaScript using emscripten: http://experiments.coscolla.net/libcaca/ http://experiments.coscolla.net/libcaca/ The author is this guy: https://github.com/kozko2001/libcaca.js https://github.com/kozko2001/libcaca.js

110 points by CSDude 12y ago

This is pretty awesome. I'm surprised that you can get such a detailed and responsive image with just different characters. Very cool.

userbinator 12y ago
YouTube did something like this a few years ago for April Fools. I think on a modern Retina-level display it would look even more impressive due to the higher resolution and smaller character-pixels. Also reminds me of this: http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption http://www.oldskool.org/pc/8088_Corruption
- mzs 12y ago
  Forget about retina displays, imagine on a VT340* in glorious sixels! https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel https://github.com/saitoha/PySixel *Or even xterm compiled with sixels support ;)

hardwaresofton 12y ago

Please add encryption (on by default), sound, and hook this up to PGP so that it can be skype for hackers (and I don't mean just crackers, I mean in the most general sense) Just in case it wasn't clear - I think this is awesome.

CSDude 12y ago
Well, I was going to do it (2 years ago as you can see in repo), but somehow I forgot. Now, I made NodeJS fork of it: https://github.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam-chat https://github.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam-chat to turn it into a chat
Crito 12y ago
Hack it up with existing software. Shunt the output across the network with ssh, perhaps into a shared tmux session. That takes care of text chat too. (Of course libcaca kills the tmux session, so you might have to drop the frame-rate or keep the tmux panes small). If you want to keep it hacky and horrible, have each side also set up pulseaudio and use it's networking capabilities over ssh to make each others computers the sink for your microphones. Or use existing proper VoIP software, if you want to be practical and boring.

chjj 12y ago

MPlayer can also do this. Something like this should work as an example: $ mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 15 -vo caca

pcmonk 12y ago
For the record, that's not pure terminal (it opens up another window). This project works even in a bare vterm. I'd love to see this work over ssh.
- chjj 12y ago
  It will draw an X11 window if there is an X display. Unset DISPLAY and it will render in the terminal: $ DISPLAY= mplayer ... Updated command for clarity (might want to fullscreen your terminal with this): $ DISPLAY= mplayer tv:// -tv driver=v4l2:width=640:height=480:device=/dev/video0 -fps 15 -vo caca
  - pcmonk 12y ago
    Sweet, I didn't realize that. Sadly, the result flashes on and off and is essentially unusable for me (either in xterm or a TTY on Slackware64 14.0). I can tell it's working, though. This also seems to work over ssh, though, which is cool.
    - nitrogen 12y ago
      Add the -quiet option to mplayer.
      - pcmonk 12y ago
        That fixed it. Thanks.
- mpyne 12y ago
  I can confirm it works fine at a raw terminal, even on Linux TTY. You might have to unset DISPLAY as recommended in the other comment. One big tip for that mode of mplayer, use the 'd' key to switch dithering modes. Keep switching until you get to Floyd-Steinberg for the best quality (IMHO).

13throwaway 12y ago

Forget looking at my ugly face, how do I watch movies in my terminal?

chjj 12y ago
You're in luck: $ mplayer -vo caca my-movie.mp4
NAFV_P 12y ago
> Forget looking at my ugly face, how do I watch movies in my terminal? Everything looks beautiful when rendered in ASCII.
broodbucket 12y ago
You can change VLC's output target to the terminal. From what I understand it's only written single-threaded so it lags horribly.

a3n 12y ago

The submitted program, and the mplayer incantations in the threads, are the most delightful things I've seen all day.

CSDude 12y ago

If you want to get full performance, use xterm, gnome-terminal and others are very slow. Colorful one uses only 6^3 colors but it looks nice: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webcam/master/colorful.png https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mustafaakin/terminal-webca... (It is currently night here mywebcam sucks on night)

techwizrd 12y ago

It's still using the old OpenCV calls, so I did a quick port to OpenCV 2. https://github.com/techwizrd/terminal-webcam https://github.com/techwizrd/terminal-webcam

b0z0 12y ago

Interesting - I just made something exactly like this (screenshot looks exactly the same): https://github.com/billyeh/termchat https://github.com/billyeh/termchat! I even had to publish a Node package to do it (pixelr). Except it's got a chat function with other users as well :)

cont4gious 12y ago

great work! i did one the runs on osx a couple years ago. might be broken now, haven't run it in a while. https://github.com/helloandre/cam2ascii https://github.com/helloandre/cam2ascii

EnigmaCurry 12y ago

OK, now how can I make this loopback such that this is what the people I'm talking to on google hangouts sees? EDIT: duh, hangouts has a "share window" feature .. this is awesome!

jsilence 12y ago

See also hasciicam by Jaromil. https://github.com/jaromil/HasciiCam https://github.com/jaromil/HasciiCam

paulannesley 12y ago

See also: https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam

mrucci 12y ago

Cool. You can do it also with `vlc` and the `-V aa` (ascii) or `-V caca` (colored ascii) video output in the console. Can play any videos or stream the webcam: vlc -V aa file.avi vlc -V aa v4l2:///dev/video0

TazeTSchnitzel 12y ago

Reminds me of AAlib and bb, the portable demo.

Argorak 12y ago
To go up the stack a bit, it reminds me of TTYQuake. (original website gone :( ) http://ingles.homeunix.net/presos/quake/4/ttyscreen.html http://ingles.homeunix.net/presos/quake/4/ttyscreen.html

zachlatta 12y ago

See also https://github.com/zfogg/ascii-chat https://github.com/zfogg/ascii-chat

dhotson 12y ago

Neat! I made something similar for OSX: https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam https://github.com/dhotson/txtcam / Screencast: https://asciinema.org/a/7301 https://asciinema.org/a/7301 I used halftone characters to do "dithering". Someone forked and updated it to work with iTerm2's 24 bit colour support: https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/items/063S2A0b2b3w3T2Z3J0q/Image%202013.11.25%2022%3A22%3A23.png https://s3.amazonaws.com/f.cl.ly/items/063S2A0b2b3w3T2Z3J0q/... .. not bad!

suprjami 12y ago

This isn't mine, but it does a similar sort of thing in browser. It's actually a port of libcaca to JavaScript using emscripten: http://experiments.coscolla.net/libcaca/ http://experiments.coscolla.net/libcaca/ The author is this guy: https://github.com/kozko2001/libcaca.js https://github.com/kozko2001/libcaca.js