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With a photocopier, enlarge or reduce the picture so that it is |
close to the best size (as stated above). Then, use a wide black |
marker to "highlight" the lines and contours (this may not be |
necessary if the picture came from a colouring book). If there is |
a background image that you want to remove, just cut and tape white |
paper over those areas or just cut out the undesired areas. This |
is important since the "junk" you would otherwise leave in would |
eventually interfere with the grid. |
When the lines are all really dark and just about all the |
background has been removed you can photocopy the new picture on |
the grid. You may have to experiment a few times to get the |
picture to come out the same as the original on an upside up grid. |
When you have such an image you can now bring up the electronic |
grid. Work at it from left to right and from top to bottom. Put |
your word processor on typeover and space over the characters of |
the first line until you get to a character that is partially or |
completely covered by a dark line on the paper grid. Use the 1 to |
5 and the A to P to locate the correct position. When you get to |
such a character, try to find a character that resembles the shape |
of the line and type that in. Ex: '8' for a character that is |
totally covered, 'a' for a character that has the bottom half |
covered, etc. This is actually starting the smoothing process at |
the same time you are converting from paper to screen. Remember |
that shading complicates things unnecessarily, so ignore it |
completely. |
Repeat this process for all the lines of the grid until the picture |
is completely transferred to electronic form. You don't need to be |
an artist do this. You just need to have some time on your hands. |
Of course at this point the ascii picture is still slightly rough, |
but at least you have the right proportions, etc. Now you could |
try to smooth it out by using the "weight distribution" technique |
described above and perhaps a printed version of one of the ascii |
pictures I have smoothed (for concrete examples). |
It may sound very complicated at first, but just to give you an |
example, the ying yang I did (a few people informed me that I had |
forgotten the eyes): |
.,ad88888888baa, |
,d8P""" ""9888ba. |
.a8" ,ad88888888888a |
aP' ,88888888888888888a |
,8" ,88888888888888888888, |
,8' (888888888( )888888888, |
,8' `8888888888888888888888 |
8) `888888888888888888888, |
8 "8888888888888888888) |
8 `888888888888888888) |
8) "8888888888888888 |
(b "88888888888888' |
`8, (8) 8888888888888) |
"8a ,888888888888) |
V8, d88888888888" |
`8b, ,d8888888888P' |
`V8a, ,ad8888888888P' Normand |
""88888888888888888P" Veilleux |
"""""""""""" |
took just over half an hour using that technique. I hope a few of |
you will be interested enough to try it out. If you do, let us |
know how it goes. |
EXPERIMENT: Would someone with access to a scanner and the |
GIF2ASC program (or an OCR) try the following: |
take a picture from a colouring book, scan it and |
then convert it to ascii. Alternatively, tell your |
scanner that what you are scanning is text, if you |
have an OCR. I am under the impression that the |
results would be quite presentable. Of course, |
sometimes theory and practice differ considerably. |
Please post your findings. |
From: Normand Veilleux <nveilleu@emr1.emr.ca> |
Date: 27 Jun 1994 20:26:35 -0500 |
I have seen several ascii versions of the Mona Lisa circulating in |
alt.ascii-art but I was not happy with any of them. They all |
appeared to be converted GIFs and even the best one, which was |
distinctly superior to all the others, only looked decent when I |
stood back at least 5 feet from it. It also had the drawback of |
being stretched vertically. So I decided to make my own. |
I also wanted to take this opportunity to give a concrete example |
of how the special grid technique that I use, accelerates and |
simplifies the creation of many ASCII drawings. I wanted to |
explain, as much as possible, what was involved in drawing by |
"hand" the ASCII version of a relatively complex picture while |
starting from scratch. |
I have described the grid technique in a previous post (in Jan. |
'94), but a recapitulation is necessary before going any further. |
Basically, the grid was nothing more than a series of characters |
that filled up the area taken by the drawing. I realized that the |
characters composing the grid would be more useful if they were |
chosen to help pinpoint where a particular portion of the drawing |