Process in progress. Planned implementation in browser using <canvas>:

1. Generate character map

   • Manually: Typewriter + scan - use blocks of each character to obtain more accurate measurement.
   • Automatically: Render text to image using specific font.

2. For manual scans, adjust ‘grid’ width, height, rows, columns so each character (block) is separated.

3. Weigh each character and save into array of form
   [ [weight (0-255), ASCII character] , [weight (0-255), ASCII character] , … ]

4. Calculate aspect ratio correction - letter width : line height

5. Select image for ASCII conversion.

   • Crop (realtime preview)
   • Adjust B&W conversion color balance (realtime preview)

6. Input largest target dimension.

   • No. of letters in 1 row for ‘portrait’
   • No. of rows on a page for ‘landscape’

7. Use Floyd-Steinberg dithering to reduce image to ASCII ‘colors’ (weights as per array described in 3).

8. Generate text...

Fishes. Ponds. Once, any size of fish could be matched with an appropriate pond. Now there is one pond, which is planet-sized.

Globalization

As the bigger fish migrated to bigger ponds, eventually, the biggest fish found even the biggest pond inadequate.

So they conglomerated. Less ponds, but bigger! This suited the big fish, who grew bigger yet.

Self perception

The small ponds drain into the mega-ponds, and with the small ponds the small fish.

The appropriately sized ponds had fostered a naive belief in the fish - that they too were appropriately sized. But this illusion is impossible to maintain in the planet-sized pond - the scale has been redefined. Suddenly, the fish feel small.

The bigger fish

The biggest fish are the most visible, and the water magnifies them further. These fish look appropriately sized in the mega-pond.

Some of the small fish resolve to grow...