pySixelify

A relatively fast SIXEL converter utility, written purely in Python.

Dependencies

• pillow: Python Imaging Library fork. pip install pillow
  • It's optional. You only need it if you need to use this as a command line tool
  • or if you use the functions that need to load an image from a file.
• A terminal that support SIXEL images.
  • (It's also optional. Not needed if you don't need to see the results.)
  • VSCode's terminal (tested, fully functional, may need some configuration)
  • Windows 11 Terminal (tested, mostly functional, no register reuse, may need some configuration)
  • XTerm
  • mlterm
  • WezTerm
  • Konsole
  • Terminology
  • Exoterm
  • Gnuplot

Comamnd line arguments

            [filename] : Name or path of the input file.
     -o, --output-file : Name or path of the output file.
                         If the `filename` is provided but not the `--output-file`,
                         the result will be written to the standard output.
  -r, --register-count : The amount of color registers to use.
                         Choices: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, or 256 (default).
                         WARNING: Setting it to 1 is a special case.
                                  When set to 1, it will (re)use a single register to render EVERY color,
                                  which may not work with every sixel terminal.
                                  It's experimental so please give feedback if you do use it <3
          -s, --silent : Ignores warning mesasges (if any).
         -p, --palette : Sets the palette generator algorithm.
                         Choices: QPUNM, OTFCD.
                         QPUNM is the default algorithm, usually high quality
                         OTFCD is the new, blazingly fast algorithm; but provides lower quality

Example usage (as a command line tool)

• Read "test.png" and print it to the terminal
  • python pySixelify "test.png"
• Read "test.png" and save it to "test.sixel"
  • python pySixelify "test.png" -o "test.sixel"
• Read "test.png" and print it to the terminal, with only 16 colors
  • python pySixelify "test.png" -r 16

TO-DO

• Multiprocessing (only if available; it won't be a strong dependency)
• More efficient palette generators (if possible)
• Realtime SIXEL conversion
• Video player
• Play Bad Apple on it in real-time at minimum 60 FPS
• Remove the pillow dependency