After taking two graphics courses at my university, I wanted to make something really cool that I could be proud to show people. Often coding projects are real downers because the only people who can truly appreciate them are other coders! This time I wanted to make something algorithmically interesting while also having a visual appeal.
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Basically, the program I designed, when called from a terminal, will render an object from a .obj file, which is a simple text file that contains all of the information needed to process a 3D image using OpenGL. Then the program clumps together "chunks" of pixels, averages the value of each color, and then prints saves one of 20 text characters to the clump. After the entire model is processed, the saved text prints on the terminal screen in the arrangement found in the original 3D rendering. I optimized the calculations so that the 3D model can rotate in real time, and the terminal will update with it, making the image in the terminal to appear to rotate as well!
The project illustrates how computer graphics actually work: what see, even though the images may be 3D models, are simply 2D images. The "text renders" show how a computer system "simply" turns on certain colors on and off at certain times to make images appear to move about in space. Because the text is forced to exist on a clearly 2D terminal, the viewer is made more aware of the 2D surface they actually see while also seeing an illusion of depth they think they see!
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Link to program and necessary files on github:
https://github.com/jdjohnson15/OpenGL_to_ASCII_converter
