This repository contains some examples of simple image compression ideas. It is created as a programming exercise rather than an attempt to create any competitive image formats.

Python Scripts to convert images in any format that can be read by Python Imaging Library (PIL) (JPG, PNG, BMP) into a run length encoded file. Images will be converted to 1-bit monochrome during encoding. Two two-byte unsigned integers represent the width and height of the image in pixels, the remainder of the file is run lengths in byte-sized unsigned integers.

Usage:

python image2rle.py images/aceofclubs.bmp images/aceofclubs.rle

python rle2image.py images/aceofclubs.rle aceofclubs_rle.png

aceofclubs_rle.png

Python Scripts turn an image to (extended) ASCII art and back again. Uses one byte for characters -- no unicode and prints some header information at the beginning so the file can be recreated.

Usage:

Using font size 12.

python image2ascii.py -f 12 images/aceofclubs.bmp images/aceofclubs_ascii.txt

python ascii2image.py images/aceofclubs_ascii.txt images/aceofclubs_ascii.png

aceofclubs_ascii.png

Python Scripts turn an image to a binary glyph file and back again. There are 16 predefined black-and-white glyphs of 8x8 pixels in lengh, and the file encodes the best match for each block in the given image. Lossy compression method.

Usage:

python image2glyph.py images/aceofclubs.bmp images/aceofclubs.glyph

python glyph2image.py images/aceofclubs.glyph images/aceofclubs_glyph.png

aceofclubs_glyph.png