Is it possible to view images in a terminal?

Question

I have ssh access to my web server. I have some image files there and I would like to see a preview of. Is there a tool that will help me? Is there a curses-based viewer that will approximate the picture?

RedGrittyBrick · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-02T20:50:38.187

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Oh yes

enter image description here

If you prefer colour there's libcaca

edited Aug 02 '14 at 20:50

answered Jan 15 '12 at 23:43

RedGrittyBrick

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I'd +10 this if I could... LOL! Good answer! – skub Jan 16 '12 at 00:10
`aview` is awesome! Is there any particular difference between the formats `.p[ngbp]m`? – Jan 16 '12 at 00:19
@hesse: [about .p{ngbp}m](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netpbm_format) and [converting them to/from jpeg etc](http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/directory.html) – RedGrittyBrick Jan 16 '12 at 16:15
all I can say is YES. – Tris - archived Aug 18 '13 at 03:40
@RedGrittyBrick : Nice, but most screen can display colours today. *(this include ssh and ncurses)* – user2284570 Aug 02 '14 at 13:12
@user2284570: [libcaca?](http://caca.zoy.org/wiki/libcaca) (answer updated) – RedGrittyBrick Aug 02 '14 at 20:51

score 9 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 17 '12 at 16:36

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The libcaca library comes with img2txt and cacaview tools for this. In color.

One can watch movies through it as well:

mplayer -really-quiet -vo caca ~/Movies/*

answered Jan 17 '12 at 16:36

u1686_grawity

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score -1 · Answer 3 · answered Jan 17 '12 at 16:19

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there's also fbi if you have frame buffer enabled. IDK if it would work over SSH, but I can view pictures from TTY without having X enabled with it.

answered Jan 17 '12 at 16:19

Rob

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No, it wouldn't, because SSH does not have a framebuffer. – u1686_grawity Aug 18 '13 at 12:37
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Yeah. I know a lot more about what's going with my stuff than I did over a year ago. – Rob Aug 19 '13 at 15:42

Is it possible to view images in a terminal?

3 Answers3