Being able to pipe in an image, rather than having to read from a saved file, would be a very useful feature addition to an already very useful tool.

One use case that I've run into is trying reading thumbnail data from large file types (like Photoshop files). Using exiftool, it's easy to extract the thumbnail data from a Photoshop file, but I find myself having to save it to a temporary file in order to be able to view it.

Currently, this process looks something like this:

exiftool -b -PhotoshopThumbnail example.psd > temp.jpg
imgcat temp.jpg
rm temp.jpg

But having something like this would be much more useful:

exiftool -b -PhotoshopThumbnail example.psd | imgcat

During the initial install of imgcat (via HomeBrew), I received the following error message:

==> Installing imgcat from eddieantonio/eddieantonio
==> Downloading https://github.com/eddieantonio/imgcat/archive/v2.1.0.tar.gz
==> Downloading from https://codeload.github.com/eddieantonio/imgcat/tar.gz/v2.1
######################################################################## 100.0%
==> autoconf
==> ./configure
==> make install PREFIX=/usr/local/Cellar/imgcat/2.1.0
Error: Calling <<-EOS.undent is disabled!
Use <<~EOS instead.
/usr/local/Homebrew/Library/Taps/eddieantonio/homebrew-eddieantonio/imgcat.rb:25:in `caveats'
Please report this to the eddieantonio/eddieantonio tap!
Or, even better, submit a PR to fix it!

It was convenient for a one-off app, but it doesn't work with all images.

hiptext does the same as this tool but it also supports videos, so what is the difference or why should we pick this one instead?

cat image by url is great

Hello, imgcat is working for me on Catalina (not with jpg as someone else reported), but not over screen. When I try to use over screen, i just get the base64'd string.

Any idea what might be wrong? Thank you.

this bug was found with afl.

proof:

=================================================================
==26325==ERROR: LeakSanitizer: detected memory leaks

Direct leak of 7499 byte(s) in 1 object(s) allocated from:
#0 0x7f7716c54cef in operator new[](unsigned long) ../../../../libsanitizer/asan/asan_new_delete.cc:107
#1 0x54f41b in cimg_library::CImg::CImg(unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int, unsigned int) CImg/CImg.h:11793
#2 0x54f41b in cimg_library::CImg::_load_jpeg(_IO_FILE*, char const*) CImg/CImg.h:51847
#3 0x58272f in cimg_library::CImg::load_jpeg(char const*) CImg/CImg.h:51771
#4 0x58272f in cimg_library::CImg::load(char const*) CImg/CImg.h:51419
#5 0x41d800 in cimg_library::CImg::assign(char const*) CImg/CImg.h:12578
#6 0x41d800 in load_image src/load_image.cc:49
#7 0x40f7e3 in print_iterate src/print_image.c:95
#8 0x40f7e3 in print_image src/print_image.c:77

SUMMARY: AddressSanitizer: 7499 byte(s) leaked in 1 allocation(s).

[NAME OF AFFECTED PRODUCT(S) AND VERSION(S)]
CImg v2.9.3

[PROBLEM TYPE]
memory leak, cause program crash.

[DESCRIPTION]
The problem arises when using the CImg::load_jpeg function

jpeg sample file:

Inline Images. Also, their script is also called imgcat... soooo....

I'm having this issue:
++ src/imgcat.o src/rgbtree.o src/print_image.o src/load_image.o -ljpeg -lpng -ltermcap -lm -lpthread -o imgcat
/usr/bin/ld: cannot find -ltermcap
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
make: *** [Makefile:51: imgcat] Error 1

I'm using imgcat on my Mac mini. However, it's not working on my iterm2 after download. It only print out the symbol and numbers but the figure.

When attempting to run brew install eddieantonio/eddieantonio/imgcat on MacOS 14.0 (Sonoma), it fails with the following error:

Last 15 lines from /Users/mikelkew/Library/Logs/Homebrew/imgcat/01.configure:
__OSX_AVAILABLE(14.0) __IOS_AVAILABLE(17.0) __WATCHOS_AVAILABLE(10.0)
                      ^
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/include/term.h:759:17: error: expected parameter declarator
__OSX_AVAILABLE(14.0) __IOS_AVAILABLE(17.0) __WATCHOS_AVAILABLE(10.0)
                ^
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/include/term.h:759:17: error: expected ')'
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/include/term.h:759:16: note: to match this '('
__OSX_AVAILABLE(14.0) __IOS_AVAILABLE(17.0) __WATCHOS_AVAILABLE(10.0)
               ^
/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/SDKs/MacOSX14.sdk/usr/include/term.h:759:23: error: expected function body after function declarator
__OSX_AVAILABLE(14.0) __IOS_AVAILABLE(17.0) __WATCHOS_AVAILABLE(10.0)
                      ^
6 errors generated.
no
./configure: error: failed to find required header: term.h

Have you come across this before, or happen to have any ideas for how to resolve it?

Hello!

As the title suggests, when running brew update this morning
I received the following 🌵 warnings 🌵 :

➜  ~ brew update
Warning: Calling Formula.sha1 is deprecated!
Use Formula.sha256 instead.
/usr/local/Library/Taps/eddieantonio/homebrew-eddieantonio/imgcat.rb:4:in `<class:Imgcat>'
Please report this to the eddieantonio/eddieantonio tap!

Warning: Calling SoftwareSpec#sha1 is deprecated!
Use SoftwareSpec#sha256 instead.
/usr/local/Library/Taps/eddieantonio/homebrew-eddieantonio/imgcat.rb:4:in `<class:Imgcat>'
Please report this to the eddieantonio/eddieantonio tap!

Warning: Calling Resource#sha1 is deprecated!
Use Resource#sha256 instead.
/usr/local/Library/Taps/eddieantonio/homebrew-eddieantonio/imgcat.rb:4:in `<class:Imgcat>'
Please report this to the eddieantonio/eddieantonio tap!

Currently on windows it prints the ASCII of that image:

See #15.

imgcat: src/load_image.cc:48: bool load_image(const char*, Image*, LoadOpts*): Assertion `(img.spectrum() == 3) || (img.spectrum() == 4)' failed.

Hi,

Basically, image is not in useful condition when i print "imgcat image.png". I've tried with both jpeg and png.

I'm using MacOS 10.14.5
followed up install instructions:
$brew tap eddieantonio/eddieantonio
$brew install imgcat

[Desktop]$ imgcat --version
imgcat 2.3.0
[Desktop]$ tput colors
256
Using MacOS Terminal 2.9.5 (421.2)

$> which imgcat
/usr/local/bin/imgcat

$> imgcat -v
imgcat 2.1.0

$> echo $TERM
xterm-256color

iterm2: build 3.1.5

For all of these permutations, the image shows up in full-screen:

imgcat -w 10 img.jpg
imgcat --width 10 img.jpg
imgcat --width 10--no-rescale img.jpg

What am I doing wrong? How can I display a resized image?

Not sure if it is my mac issue:

imgcat <(curl -s https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fa/Apple_logo_black.svg)

it shows:

For other types of image, png for example, it works.

trashhalo/imgcat#3

trashhalo/imgcat@1f9ef8c

double resolution by using half characters

I noticed when I cloned the repository using the 'git clone' the directory 'CImg' was empty, which caused problems with compilation when 'CImg.h' was needed.

hi,

I get the following error:

scons install production=true
scons: *** SCons version 2.5.1 does not run under Python version 3.5.0.
Python 3 is not yet supported.
make: *** [install] Error 1

This may result in perceivably more accurate colour quantization.

The nonlinear relations for L*, a*, and b* are intended to mimic the nonlinear response of the eye. Furthermore, uniform changes of components in the L*a*b* color space aim to correspond to uniform changes in perceived color, so the relative perceptual differences between any two colors in L*a*b* can be approximated by treating each color as a point in a three-dimensional space (with three components: L*, a*, b*) and taking the Euclidean distance between them. ¹
—From Wikipedia

See Block Elements. More interesting things can be done with some of the other characters in this range, but it should be sufficient to use ▀ (U+2580)

When I try to open a jpg file, it doesn't work and just show a broken icon.

But works quite well when opening png files

Make it easy to distribute on Windows! I literally have no idea how to do this myself, so help wanted.

Here is the build log: https://pastebin.com/HeSNdB2t

Wasn't sure if it was related to having my shell set to ZSH so I tried in bash, passing width options worked but renders gif images as stills and they look pixelated. I'm running Iterm in xterm-256color. But after installing shell integrations in bash I get same result so it's not shell related.

Here's output before install shell integrations, takes width param and displays pixelated but sized to width.

And here's after installing ITerm2 shell integrations. Rejects -w args but shows high res gif which is animated (screen shot is still) but stays default actual image width.
Also I tried with imgcat gify.gif -w 15 and gives exact same output with same error message.

When installing via brew, I got the following error:

How can I fix this? Thanks.
Home brew version:

When using this command, you’d ideally want the image to be as large as possible without going offscreen. The width parameter works quite well for landscape images, but portrait images will still be too large. Adding equivalent functionality for height would be very useful.

$ ./configure

checking for sys/ioctl.h... yes
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for term.h... yes
checking for sysexits.h... yes
checking to compile C++ with -std=c++11...yes
checking to link with libncurses [using tigetnum()]... yes
checking to link with libpng using pkg-config [using png_create_info_struct()]... ./configure: 172: pkg-config: not found
/usr/bin/ld: /tmp/ccKOPT4A.o: in function `main':
conftest.3135590.c:(.text+0x5): undefined reference to `png_create_info_struct'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
no
checking to link with libjpeg using pkg-config [using jpeg_set_defaults()]... ./configure: 172: pkg-config: not found
/usr/bin/ld: /tmp/ccIrQLgp.o: in function `main':
conftest.3135590.c:(.text+0x5): undefined reference to `jpeg_set_defaults'
collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
no
checking for pandoc... no
warning: ignoring requirement for pandoc...
creating config.mk
creating src/config.h
creating src/cimg_config.h

After executing sudo apt-get install pkg-config, everything is OK.

$ ./configure

checking for sys/ioctl.h... yes
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for term.h... yes
checking for sysexits.h... yes
checking to compile C++ with -std=c++11...yes
checking to link with libncurses [using tigetnum()]... yes
checking to link with libpng using pkg-config [using png_create_info_struct()]... yes
checking to link with libjpeg using pkg-config [using jpeg_set_defaults()]... yes
checking for pandoc... no
warning: ignoring requirement for pandoc...
creating config.mk
creating src/config.h
creating src/cimg_config.h

Mind adding pkg-config as a build dependeny in README?

terminate called after throwing an instance of 'cimg_library::CImgArgumentException'
what(): cimg::fread(): Invalid reading request of 0 unsigned char from file 0x7453a0 to buffer (nil).

test.zip

• Python script to generate kd-tree
• Get 256 color mapping
• Determine terminal color depth
• Write printing function
• Write rescale
• Check if is a tty.
• Argument parsing
  • Option: --depth (force colour depth)
  • Option --no-resize
  • Option: --width
• Remove need for aggressive assertions
• Install
• Manpage
• Package for package managers
• Get 8 16 8 color mapping
• More compatible static assert
• Make pixel test.
• Automatic testing (47454d7)
• Cross-platform continuous integration
• Build sticker in README, because that is of utmost importance
• More illustrative front-page picture
• --help and --version options
• Make some real test cases

#   The foreground escape sequence is ^[38;2;<r>;<g>;<b>m
#   The background escape sequence is ^[48;2;<r>;<g>;<b>m
#   <r> <g> <b> range from 0 to 255 inclusive.
#   The escape sequence ^[0m returns output to default

https://github.com/tmux/tmux/blob/master/tools/24-bit-color.sh

I broke the automatic resize if bigger than terminal width.

• Somehow write tests for this, despite the codepath being behind isatty()
  • Bypass isatty(), because... ugh.
• Fix it!

It seems to look for curses instead of ncurses.

[   17s] + ./configure --host=i586-suse-linux-gnu --build=i586-suse-linux-gnu --program-prefix= --disable-dependency-tracking --prefix=/usr --exec-prefix=/usr --bindir=/usr/bin --sbindir=/usr/sbin --sysconfdir=/etc --datadir=/usr/share --includedir=/usr/include --libdir=/usr/lib --libexecdir=/usr/libexec --localstatedir=/var --sharedstatedir=/var/lib --mandir=/usr/share/man --infodir=/usr/share/info --disable-dependency-tracking
[   17s] checking to link with libcurses [using tigetnum()]... /usr/lib/gcc/i586-suse-linux/11/../../../../i586-suse-linux/bin/ld: cannot find -lcurses
[   17s] collect2: error: ld returned 1 exit status
[   17s] no
[   17s] ncurses is required for compilation

This seems to be the solution #36
But apparently we don't use autotools/configure.ac anymore. (Why is that the case?)

Full build log: https://build.opensuse.org/build/home:jubalh/openSUSE_Tumbleweed/i586/imgcat/_log

I'm getting the following error message trying to open an image

imgcat: Failed to open image: yorkshire_terrier_9.jpg

It doesn't appear to be a permission problem because I can do a hexdump on the file with hexdump Yorkshire_terrier_9.jpg. I doubt that the image is corrupted as it's part of a well known image dataset.

I've been able to correctly display images from another dataset but they were png's so I don't know if this problem is specific to jpgs.

When attempting to run brew install eddieantonio/eddieantonio/imgcat on Ubuntu 22.04 I received the following:

==> Installing eddieantonio/eddieantonio/imgcat
==> ./configure
Last 15 lines from /home/user/.cache/Homebrew/Logs/imgcat/01.configure:
2023-03-14 21:36:24 +0000

./configure

checking for sys/ioctl.h... yes
checking for sys/time.h... yes
checking for term.h... /tmp/conftest.949801.c:1:12: fatal error: term.h: No such file or directory
    1 |   #include <term.h>
      |            ^~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
no
./configure: error: failed to find required header: term.h

when invoked from a tmux window, the display seems to show a base64 version of the image file

Warning: Calling bottle :unneeded is deprecated! There is no replacement.
Please report this issue to the trashhalo/brews tap (not Homebrew/brew or Homebrew/core):
  /opt/homebrew/Library/Taps/trashhalo/homebrew-brews/Formula/imgcat.rb:6

reference: https://apple.stackexchange.com/questions/429492/warning-calling-bottle-unneeded-is-deprecated-there-is-no-replacement

Tested on both pngs and jpegs.

Added original image not sure what more could I can do to help?