Real ASCII - Depth Shade Filter

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Real ASCII - Depth Shade Filter

2025-12-19

Tool

/

Real ASCII

The shade filter renders the image with shading. Unlike in the trace filter, where palette is optional, shade filter requires you to set up a palette.

📖 Guide: Depth Shade ASCII Art#

1️⃣ cd to src/depth_shade.

2️⃣ Set up a palette. Recommended save directory is resource/palette_files. Check out the palette tutorial.

3️⃣ Execute depth_shade.py. Example:

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python depth_shade.py --image_path ../../resource/imgs/monalisa.jpg --resize_factor 4 --invert_color

Parameters

argument	help
—image_path	The path of the image.
—save_path	The directory where the result image will be saved to.
—resize_method	The image resize method. Check below for available options.
—resize_factor	The resize factor of the new image.
—contrast_factor	The contrast factor based on the original image.
—sigma_s	The value of color smoothing in area.
—sigma_r	The value of color smoothing in edges.
—thresholds_gamma	Controls the shading (gradient) levels. Higher value makes the algorithm emphasis the bright pixels. (Better granularity)
—palette_path	Use a palette.
—max_workers	The maximum number of multithread workers.
—invert_color	If included, invert the color of the result image.
—color_option	The option to color the image. Check below for available options.
—save_ascii	If included, the characters will be saved to a file.
—save_ascii_path	The path to save the characters. Check out the ‘ascii_output’ folder for the results.
—antialiasing	If included, retain anti-aliasing of the characters.
—reference_num	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. Takes previous character as reference to replace ‘filler’ characters. A filler is a 1px * the row height empty character used to filling in the gaps that cannot be matched with the given characters in palette.
—max_num_fill_item	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. This value is the maximum number of characters used to fill any gap.
—filler_lambda	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. Larger lambda indicates more emphasis on the gap filling with palette characters and less emphasis on the similarity between filling choices and the references.
—char_weight_sum_factor	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. This factor indicates the importance of character weights when deciding the next character.
—curr_layer_weight_factor	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. This factor indicates the importance of a particular layer when deciding the next character. By default, we assume that the gradient image in higher index have more importance.
—offset_mse_factor	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. This factor indicates the importance of mean squared error when deciding the next character. Higher MSE means less likely to be chosen.
—coherence_score_factor	Only used if the palette file is non-fixed width. This factor indicates the importance of staying in the same level when deciding the next character.