News: a new version of textorizer2 (textorizer2-ps.c) now generates EPS files. This makes it much easier to find fonts that work well. I recommend Impact or Arial Black, with text in capitals for best results.
More examples (in SVG): tim.svg, swade.svg (swade-dense.svg), w3c.svg.
Paul Downey has a great web interface, if you want to avoid all the mess of running it yourself.
This tool takes as input an image in PNG format (left), as well as a text file containing some text, and produces an SVG file which reconstructs the original image using parts of the text scattered around (right). If you're confused about what to do with the SVG file, download the Opera browser which will display them for you.
Download: textorizer.c. Compiling requires the libpng 1 library. To compile, type:
gcc -o textorize textorizer.c -lm -lpng
Instructions: type textorizer -h and follow the
instructions.
New: a makefile and linux executables are available:
How does it work? Who cares. Ask me if you really want to know
The new textorizer hack does things a bit differently: it just fills up the picture with a given text. Compile it as textorizer and run it with no arguments for help.
Examples:
Licencing: Copyright 2006 Max Froumentin. This software is distributed under the W3CŪ software notice and license.
Acknowledgements: Amy van der Hiel for her Buddha picture, Dan Brickley for his danbri pictures, Paul Downey for writing the web tool, and all the users who sent feedback.
