gif-for-cli – convert media to animated ASCII art

gif-for-cli is an open source utility that converts gifs and mp4 files to animated ASCII art. It takes the chosen .gif file (file, url, or Tenor query) and uses ffmpeg to split the animated gif or short video into static jpg frames. Those jpg frames are then converted to ASCII art. The program then prints one frame at a time to the console, clearing the console using ANSI escape sequences between each frame.

The utility supports querying the Tenor GIF API.

It requires Python 3 (with setuptools and pip), zlib, libjpeg and ffmpeg.

Features include:

• Query Tenor’s GIF API – Tenor is the API that delivers the relevant GIFs for any application.
• Override display mode.
• Change the maximum height and width.
• Loop the animation indefinitely or set the number of times to repeat the animation.
• Export and share the generated ASCII art.
• Animation and color support are performed using ANSI escape sequences.
• Skip displaying ASCII in the terminal; this is designed for pre-caching output.
• Input source can be a filename, url, or a query to the Tenor GIF API.

Website: github.com/google/gif-for-cli
Support: Google Blog
Developer: Google (not officially supported software)
License: Apache License 2.0

gif-for-cli is written in Python. Learn Python with our recommended free books and free tutorials.

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