The libcaca
library is a graphics library that outputs text instead of pixels, so that it
can work on older video cards or text terminals. It is not unlike the famous
AAlib library.
libcaca needs a terminal to work, thus
it should work on all Unix systems (including Mac OS X) using either the
slang library or the
ncurses library, on DOS using the
conio.h library, and on Windows systems
using either slang or
ncurses (through Cygwin emulation) or
conio.h. If
./configure
detects libcaca, the caca libvo driver
will be built.
The differences with AAlib are
the following:
16 available colors for character output (256 color pairs)
color image dithering
But libcaca also has the
following limitations:
no support for brightness, contrast, gamma
You can use some keys in the caca window to change rendering options:
| Key | Action |
|---|---|
| d |
Toggle libcaca dithering methods.
|
| a |
Toggle libcaca antialiasing.
|
| b |
Toggle libcaca background.
|
libcaca will also look for
certain environment variables:
Set recommended caca driver. e.g. ncurses, slang, x11.
Specifies the number of rows and columns. e.g. 128x50.
Specifies the font to use. e.g. fixed, nexus.
Use the -framedrop option if your computer is not fast enough to render all frames.