ascii.py

from PIL import Image
import argparse
ascii_char = list("$@B%8&WM#*oahkbdpqwmZO0QLCJUYXzcvunxrjft/\|()1{}[]?-_+~<>i!lI;:,\"^`'. ")  

def get_char(r,b,g,alpha =256):

    if alpha == 0:
        return ' '

    length = len(ascii_char)

    gray = int(0.2126 * r + 0.7152 * g + 0.0722 * b)
    
    unit = (256.0 + 1)/length

    return ascii_char[int(gray/unit)]

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser()

parser.add_argument('file')
parser.add_argument('-o','--output')
parser.add_argument('--width',type = int,default = 80)
parser.add_argument('--height',type = int, default = 80)

args = parser.parse_args()

IMG = args.file
WIDTH = args.width
HEIGHT = args.height
OUTPUT = args.output

if __name__ == '__main__':
    im = Image.open(IMG)
    im = im.resize((WIDTH,HEIGHT),Image.NEAREST)

    txt = ""

    for i in range(HEIGHT):
        for j in range(WIDTH):
            txt += get_char(*im.getpixel((j,i)))
        txt += '\n'
    
    print txt