Show HN: Pit – View PNG/JPG images directly in the terminal (no ASCII art)

2•FerkiHN•5h ago

I often work in the terminal (both Linux and Termux on Android), and I’ve always missed a simple way to view images without launching any GUI. Most tools rely on ASCII-art renderers or require large dependencies.

So I built PIT — a minimal C-based utility that displays real images (PNG/JPG) inside the terminal, using ANSI colors. No ASCII tricks — you actually see the image.

Highlights:

No GUI needed

No dependencies (just raw C + ANSI output)

Works on Linux, Termux (Android), and even Windows

Renders up to 600×600 images, even on older terminals

Demo screenshots: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/phono-in-terminal-image...

GitHub: https://github.com/Ferki-git-creator/phono-in-terminal-image...

I’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas for improvements, or feature requests. Thanks!

Comments

FerkiHN•5h ago

terminal-based image viewing something you’ve ever wanted? Do you use Termux or remote Linux sessions where a GUI isn't available?

FerkiHN•5h ago

Technically, PIT doesn’t use ASCII art or pixel blocks — it maps RGB colors directly to 256-color ANSI escape sequences. It’s all written in C with no external libraries. I’d be curious if anyone tried something similar?

FerkiHN•5h ago

Curious how far you can push ANSI rendering? I’m testing image scaling, dither modes, and even animation support. Would you find it useful if the viewer supported image sequences (like GIF frames or simple flipbooks)?

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Show HN: Pit – View PNG/JPG images directly in the terminal (no ASCII art)

Comments

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