https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixel

criddell · 2024-07-01T17:54:51

So this is basically writing to the terminal as if it's a six pin dot matrix printer?

Are Sixel images actually used very often these days? Is support in Windows Console a big deal, or just lots of fun?

Doxin · 2024-07-04T13:34:26

> So this is basically writing to the terminal as if it's a six pin dot matrix printer?

Yes, if that dot matrix printer could then also select any color you like. Sixels can do full color images.

> Are Sixel images actually used very often these days?

No, but support and use of them is increasing, not decreasing as one might expect.

numpad0 · 2024-07-01T23:55:29

I think it was necroed by a Japanese Twitter addict(@tsutsuii) to display Twitter user icons without X on NetBSD/luna68k, then others started doing all sorts of unholy things with it from w3m with images to terminal-based RDP client.

There aren't a lot of "legitimate" use cases for now, I believe, but it's neat, and IMO an image mode extension for tty kind of makes it whole.

docandrew · 2024-07-01T18:24:16

There are some fun things you can do with it like terminal image viewing, etc. The notcurses library uses it, some of their demo videos are really neat.

ranger_danger · 2024-07-01T23:42:37

https://saitoha.github.io/libsixel/