imgcat

The imgcat CLI, written in Python (and Python API, too).

It works with iTerm2, and even inside tmux.

Installation and Usage

pip install imgcat

Command-line interface (similar to iTerm2's imgcat):

$ imgcat local_image.png
$ imgcat a.png b.png c.png
$ cat from_stdin.gif | imgcat

# height is 10 lines
$ imgcat a.png --height 10

Python API:

>>> from imgcat import imgcat

# from the content of image (e.g. buffer in python3, str in python2)
>>> imgcat(open("./local_image.png"))

# or numpy arrays!
>>> im = skimage.data.chelsea()   # [300, 451, 3] ndarray, dtype=uint8
>>> imgcat(im, height=7)

# matplotlib, PIL.Image, etc.
>>> imgcat(Image.fromarray(im))

>>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> fig, ax = plt.subplots(); ax.plot([1, 2, 3, 4, 5])
>>> imgcat(fig)

Matplotlib Backend: module://imgcat

MPLBACKEND="module://imgcat" python draw_matplotlib.py

>>> import matplotlib
>>> matplotlib.use("module://imgcat")

>>> import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
>>> fig, ax = plt.subplots()
>>> ax.text(0.5, 0.5, "Hello World!");
>>> fig.show()
# an image shall be displayed on your terminal!

IPython magic (works both in terminal and notebook)

%load_ext imgcat
%imgcat skimage.data.chelsea()

Notes

• Currently, tmux 2.5+ cannot display big images. Use tmux <= 2.4 or run outside tmux.
• TODO: General platform/emulator support (introduce multiple backends)

Related Projects

• Original implementation: imgcat from iTerm2 (limited tmux support)
  • There are modified versions with better tmux support by Eric Dobson and by @krtx
• Node.js: term-img (no tmux support)
• Go: iterm2-imagetools (no tmux support)

License

MIT License