D
Show HN
Show HN: ASCII Drawing Board
I've made an ASCII drawing board. You can set any brush, canvas size, export art as a text file.

I want to keep it as manual/analog as possible, hence there is no tool for converting image to ASCII.

Prompting LLMs to draw ASCII art turned out to be a difficult task . So instead I decided to ask it make a drawing board. Wihtout coding agent I wouldn't even try myself. Although it is an interesting task, it would drift me away.

Basically it's just a drawing board with endless variations of textures and brushes: when you make large canvas and zoom out you don't see ASCII anymore, but textured drawing. E.g. this is a cat: https://x.com/delopsu_com/status/1971726204073136219, brush used: " ".

I would appreciate if you could give it a try and tell your people about it, if it's something that may be of their interest. Also please give any feedback here or on X.

turns out there is already (or is emerging) ASCII benchmark for LLMs.

It appears a little buggy handling fixed width improperly, noticeably when using a mouse to write out a word, with uneven drawing, the fixed width spacing does not consistently properly match the cursor movement for some lines.
Could you please share the brush that you used?

Some characters squize/expand line because of the font. E.g. emojis.

Thank you giving it a try and for the feedback!

You can actually see this bug with the default brush (Firefox 143.0.4 Windows)

https://gifrun.azureedge.net/video/0bf0ec6a48ec4f75b9942cf1a...

                     ӨӨӨ       ӨӨ        ӨӨӨ              ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                     ӨӨ       ӨӨӨ        ӨӨӨӨ             ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                     ӨӨ       ӨӨ         ӨӨӨӨ             ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                    ӨӨӨ       ӨӨ         ӨӨӨӨӨ            ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                    ӨӨ        ӨӨ         ӨӨ ӨӨ            ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                   ӨӨӨ       ӨӨӨ         ӨӨ ӨӨ            ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                   ӨӨ        ӨӨ          ӨӨ ӨӨӨ           ӨӨ            ӨӨ
                   ӨӨ        ӨӨ          ӨӨ  ӨӨ          ӨӨӨ            ӨӨ
                   ӨӨ        ӨӨ          ӨӨ  ӨӨӨ         ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                   ӨӨ        ӨӨ          ӨӨ   ӨӨӨ        ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                  ӨӨӨ       ӨӨӨ          ӨӨ    ӨӨ        ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                  ӨӨ        ӨӨ           ӨӨ    ӨӨӨ       ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                  ӨӨ        ӨӨ           ӨӨ     ӨӨ       ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                 ӨӨӨ        ӨӨ           ӨӨ     ӨӨӨ      ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                 ӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨ          ӨӨӨ      ӨӨӨ     ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                 ӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨӨ          ӨӨ        ӨӨ     ӨӨ             ӨӨ
                 ӨӨ         ӨӨ          ӨӨ        ӨӨӨ   ӨӨӨ             ӨӨ
                ӨӨӨ         ӨӨ          ӨӨ         ӨӨ   ӨӨ              ӨӨ
                ӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨ         ӨӨӨ  ӨӨ              ӨӨ
                ӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨ  ӨӨ              ӨӨ
                ӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨӨ ӨӨ              ӨӨӨ
               ӨӨӨ          ӨӨ          ӨӨ           ӨӨӨӨӨ               ӨӨ
               ӨӨ           ӨӨ         ӨӨӨ            ӨӨӨӨ               ӨӨ
               ӨӨ           ӨӨ         ӨӨ             ӨӨӨӨ
               ӨӨ           ӨӨ         ӨӨ              ӨӨӨ
               ӨӨ           ӨӨ         ӨӨ              ӨӨ             ӨӨӨӨӨӨ
               ӨӨ                      ӨӨ                             ӨӨӨӨӨӨ

           HNNN          HHHHHHHN
       HNNNNNNNNN  HHHHHHHHHHHHHN
      HNNNNN HNNNNNHHHHHHN     HN
      HN        HNHHN          HN
      HHN         HN         HNNN
       HHN                  HNNN
        HHN              HNNNN
         HHHHN        HNNNNNN
          HHHHHHN   HNNNNN
             HHHHHHNHNN
                HHHHN
                   HN
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
[dead]
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
It could work on mobile if you work a little bit on it. Right now touch is dragging the screen
Oh, yes, forgot about it. On tablet it could be pretty convenient to use, if it works. Thank you!
On my iPad, the vertical movements seem to trigger the page scroll
I've pushed a simple fix.

It allows to draw on touch devices (with interesting effects with multi-touch). But one can stuck at the center of the canvas. If it happens — tap the header of the browser to scroll back to top.

Could you please try it again?

Thinking about more elegant solution.

Much better now. Thanks for fixing it!
Thank you!
Thank you, working on it at the moment.
Really fun. Perfect HN post.
Thank you!
Nice job. There's also a good open-source ASCII paint tool which supports export to TXT/ or PNG that I've been using for the past few years as well.

Github

https://github.com/Kirilllive/ASCII_Art_Paint

Online Demo

https://kirilllive.github.io/ASCII_Art_Paint/ascii_paint.htm...

Thank yuou for sharing! Interesting solution. I'm thinking about adding brush palette.

And thank you for checking it out, glad you liked it!

Brilliant. Rick ASCii thanks you https://bigjobby.com/8bitrick/
Thank you!
Would much prefer it to start with just printable ASCII characters in the brush (32--126) from which the output would work in more places and would be in better alignment with the name.

Having said that, yes, fun and interesting, thank you...

Thank you for trying it and for the feedback! Glad you liked it!

> start with just printable ASCII characters in the brush

Yes. I started like this. But then set these fancy characters by default to show the capabilities, because those who are familiar with the concept know the possibilities, but those who don't know could think that it's limited and not notice wide limits.

  • doi9t
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
It's always nice to see new tools editing ASCII; especially when working with markdown documentation.

For those who like those types of tools, but for diagrams, there's asciiflow.com.

Good job!

Yes! Thank you for sharing it.

And it feels like ASCII art is going through a renaissance. Maybe I'm biased and watched it a lot recently.

Let me also share a few cool ASCII tools I came across while working on this one:

- animation studio: https://ascii-motion.app/

- image to ASCII converter: https://www.tooooools.app/effects/ascii

  • ·
  • 3 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
Oh, these guys have a drawing board too, with a bit different approach: https://www.asciiart.eu/ascii-draw-studio/app
> So instead I decided to ask it make a drawing board

Very nice. Congrats to the coding agent which made this. Needs an undo button though!

Passed it. Here is the reponse:

> Love to hear that — thank you for sharing!

Not sure about Undo — part of me wants to keep it hardcore. Like with real ink.

Nice! Feature request: drop-down menu to select a few “popular“ brush sets.
Yes, thank you! I'm thinking about making brushes and art gallery, it would be very interesting to see what people come up with.

Thank you for checking it out and for the feedback!

  • slig
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
Nice one, thanks for sharing! Love these simple tools that LLMs can help us ship them in no time.
Yes, exactly! There might so many unexplored and/or abandoned ideas.

Thank you for checking it out!

It's a shame that I haven't read text above after posting (only in Edit mode).

I used asterisk after "difficult task" and in the footer — all between became italic. And also brush was cleaned out.

is this opensource? adding a cool fluid simulation to whatever you draw would be really fun. its like one of those ioccc vids - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMYfkOtYYlg
Very interesting one! So many cool things have been made in this field! However I think it's not relevant for the board. It's not open-sourced (at least yet).

Anyway thank you for checking it out and suggestion!

I'm going to use this for all of my Slack replies
Aha, thank you!
emacs M-x artist-mode
TIL :)
Doesn't seem to work on Firefox mobile. On each stroke it only renders one "point".
Hm. What OS do you use? It works fine (for me) in Firefox on iOS. Haven't tested on Android.
For me, Firefox on Android, I get this:

One stroke draws one spot at the starting point. Any number of further strokes draw nothing. When I tap outside the canvas I can draw one more point

Could you please try it now? Pushed a fix, but have no Android to test it.
Still only one point
  • ·
  • 3 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
This is such a great idea, well done. Congrats!
Thank you!
very interesting, good job!
Thank you!
  • ·
  • 2 days ago
  • ·
  • [ - ]
[dead]