Show HN: Asciilator.com

I'm not sure I understand the appeal of sites that are literally a less-than-a-sentence prompt I could have typed myself.

dwaltrip 1y

But you didn't, and they did :)

It made me smile, I'm glad they built it.

dmd 1y

Well, no, I have many times typed exactly that prompt, because making a hundred billion dollars worth of computer go "brr" to make ascii art is amusing! I just don't understand what the point is of a dedicated site.

4m1rkOP1y

Even the UI is created by AI :bushes:

cadamsdotcom 1y

Life is complete, I now have a beautiful 2D ascii elephant!

Random idea: now animate it.

Run the initial generate, keep that result, provide it back to another llm call: “user requested an elephant. you drew this. (object here) generate the next frame of an animation of this.”

Iterate the prompt 2-3 times for cool animated ascii art :)

4m1rkOP1y

I like that! Though it's not very smart or consistent at creating ascii art.

dwaltrip 1y

Object: pizza pie

       _      
     _|=|__________
    /              \
   /                \
  /__________________\
  |   ________   ___ |
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |      |  |   ||
  |  |______|  |___||
  |_________________|
     ( )      ( )
    (   )    (   )
      ( )    ( )

A flying house?? Very curious!

4m1rkOP1y

It was too excited ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

voidofpasswords 1y

tried with `goldfish`

           _.-=-._       
        .-`  '---`  '-.   
      /      .-"-.     \  
     |     /  _  \     |  
      \    \ (_) /    /   
       '-._ '-=-'_.-'     
            '---'

im not sure what this is

1024kb 1y

Looking at some of the popular suggestions, it can't help with some words, because they are too rude, however, "pen is" returns something rather long.

lunaps 1y

Haha it's so much fun to play around

lunaps 1y

please tell me what this is:

      w  c( .. )o    
       \__(  - )    
             /\       
           /(_|_)\   
          w  / |     
             | |

mysterydip 1y

Not quite sure it's working properly. Just saw a shrek face labeled "pikachu", and a column with nothing else labeled "windmill".

4m1rkOP1y

Yeah, it sometimes doesn't feel like it. I tried different prompts but it's not that smart at generating ascii art.

Simorgh 1y

Is it using a model to generate the ASCII art?

It’s quite clever.

4m1rkOP1y

It's gpt-4.1

Simorgh 1y

Got it — it’s interesting how a text model can generate compelling visual representations that are essentially style-matching.

Matching styles using vision models is not that easy, especially if you want to capture the core subject of the prompt.

shibeprime 1y

Lmao, its so random.

ASCII Art for "bambi":

         ,   ,
        /////|
       ///// |
      /////  |
     |~~~| | |
     |===| |/|
     | B |/| |
     | A / | |
     | M |  |
     | B |  |
     | I | /
     |===|/
     '---'
    /     \
   /       \
  /  .-""-. \
 (  /      \ )
  \/        \/
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
   |        |
  /          \
 /            \

/ \

4m1rkOP1y

I'm curious too. Should've make it explain why it generated what generated and as a note :D

4m1rkOP1y

Created using FastAPI and HTMX.

Ayushmishra23 1y

cool

b0dhimind 1y

       ___
     _/   \_
    /       \
   |         |
   |         |
   |         |
    \_______/
      /   \
     /     \
    /       \
   /         \
  /           \
  |   ___     |
  |  (___)    |
  |           |
   \         /
    \_______/

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