Show HN: An ASCII 3D Rendering Engine

(glyphcss.com)

43 points | by apresmoi 3 days ago

11 comments

  • 4k0hz 43 minutes ago
    Is there a good reason not to use WebGL to render the scene and compute the character mapping? Even if you're dead set on outputting text to a `<pre>` you could write the ascii values out to a framebuffer and copy from that for a pretty significant speedup.
  • Retr0id 1 hour ago
    > No WebGL

    Why is this an advantage? I have a GPU and I'd rather it was used. As-is, one of my CPU cores is pegged at 100% just rendering the landing page.

    • khazhoux 16 minutes ago
      When the topic is rendering 3d models using ASCII glyphs, we've already exited the realm of advantages and disadvantages. This is just supposed to be cool.
      • Retr0id 12 minutes ago
        Cool things are allowed to be practical and well-engineered, too. Either way, it seems weird to list a disadvantage as a headline feature.
        • khazhoux 6 minutes ago
          Sure. But I think the idea is already absurd, so I'm not expecting a performant engine out of it.

          I get your point though, that the same ASCII rendering effect might be doable at much higher scale without pegging the CPU.

    • electroglyph 14 minutes ago
      heh, i came here to say basically the same thing
    • alightsoul 44 minutes ago
      maybe to prove the output is purely text only?
  • rckt 33 minutes ago
    What’s up with filtering of clearly low effort AI posts here?

    Every now and then I see this crap here. And people even engage into discussion. This is ridiculous.

    • kristopolous 12 minutes ago
      https://github.com/apresmoi/glyphcss

      I wouldn't call it low effort ... seems to be done over the course of months.

      I agree with those 4 commits started this morning projects that get huge hype and screaming fanboys, that's absurd. But I don't think this is that.

  • smalltorch 3 days ago
    This is actually pretty awesome. I enjoyed going through all the models.

    I'm also not sure why I love ASCII art so much. Maybe it's because it's such an abstract way to represent something, yet our brains make perfect sense of everything.

    The shading is where it all comes to life.

    What is the file size of one single model on average?

    • apresmoi 3 days ago
      Thanks! The gallery holds real 3D files (.glb/.obj/.vox), ~300 KB each. The ASCII isn't stored, it's rendered live from the mesh. Its size only depends on the grid resolution, not the model: a full-screen view is ~150×50 characters, so around ~10 KB of text (a cube and a detailed mesh would produce the same byte count)
  • deftio 1 hour ago
    Wow. Where was this in the 90s when I "needed" it.

    Is there a console version?

  • khazhoux 16 minutes ago
    I understand this was probably vibe-coded, but it's still a lot of fun. Well done!
  • melvinczyk 3 days ago
    I have been looking for a tool like this for so long. Very cool I will def be using for my website
  • shshhssjjww 59 minutes ago
    Well done, Claude!
  • ofabioroma 1 hour ago
    Absolutely incredible
  • Itious 3 days ago
    This is great! I’m going to use this for my website thanks!
    • apresmoi 3 days ago
      send it over when you have it so I can put it in the showcase :)
  • karlmush 3 days ago
    Love this!