How do I convert an image to ASCII art?

Upload any image (PNG, JPG, GIF, WebP) by clicking the upload button or dragging and dropping. Adjust resolution and character set, then copy or download the result.

Is this tool free to use?

Yes. Browser conversion is free with no sign-up required, and trusted PlatPhorm or Vercel Blob image artifact conversion is public. Untrusted external image URLs and protected write actions require PLATPHORM_API_KEY.

Does this tool support MCP (Model Context Protocol)?

Yes. The tool exposes an MCP endpoint at /api/mcp with tools for inline image conversion, trusted artifact URL conversion, BrowserOps screenshot conversion, artifact manifests, health checks, charset listing, and webhook management. Discovery at /.well-known/mcp.json.

Can BrowserOps or AgentUI publish screenshot artifacts to ASCII without a key?

Yes. Trusted *.platphormnews.com and Vercel Blob image artifact URLs can be converted without PLATPHORM_API_KEY. External or untrusted image URLs require PLATPHORM_API_KEY and SSRF, type, and size guardrails.

Can ASCII streams become browser game assets?

That is the active 136-day roadmap. The target is trusted ASCII streams that reconstruct through deASCII-compatible compact color payloads into browser-game levels, textures, readable signs, sprites, and UI assets, with BrowserOps and Evals gates.

The road to November 19, 2026: ASCII streams into playable browser assets

November 19, 2026 is the product milestone for turning ASCII streams into browser-game assets. ASCII owns the first half of that journey: converting images, screenshots, generated visuals, and trusted artifacts into compact text plus exact color metadata that another runtime can understand.

The stream is the asset source

A good browser-game pipeline does not need to ship a giant image payload for every intermediate step. It can start with rows, chunks, chroma sidecars, frame boundaries, trace IDs, and a manifest. deASCII can reconstruct only the parts that need pixels: preview textures, readable signs, sprites, UI panels, animation strips, and editor thumbnails.

Roadmap commitments

Compact ASCII and chroma streams remain readable, chunkable, and source-attributed.
Frame separators for ASCII animation loops normalize into browser-loadable manifests.
deASCII reconstructs selected frames as texture, sign, sprite, UI, and preview assets.
BrowserOps and Evals prove that imports are visible, playable, bounded, and honest.

Animation belongs here too

Classic ASCII animation demos, including spinning donut-style torus loops, are part of the target workflow. The goal is not to reuse someone else's implementation; the goal is to accept legitimate frame streams, preserve timing and luminance, and make each frame reconstructable as a compact game asset.