---
id: climage
version: "0.2.2"
license: MIT License
license_treatment: permissive
maintenance: aging
---

# climage — Convert images to beautiful ANSI escape codes

License: permissive · Maintenance: aging · Downloads: 74.9K/mo

## What it is and what it does

CLImage is a Python library and CLI tool that renders images as ANSI escape code sequences suitable for display in terminal windows. It accepts image files, Pillow Image objects, or raw RGB arrays and converts them into colored text output, with support for ASCII or Unicode characters and color depths ranging from 8-color to full Truecolor. The library uses KDTrees for fast color lookup and memoization to optimize repeated conversions.

The package is designed for developers who need to display images in command-line interfaces, whether for visualization tools, terminal-based dashboards, or artistic rendering. It handles image resizing, color palette selection (including system palettes like Solarized), and provides both high-level conversion functions and lower-level helpers for pixel-by-pixel control over ANSI code generation.

Use it for:

- Display images in terminal-based dashboards or monitoring tools without leaving the CLI
- Convert image files to ANSI art for inclusion in terminal documentation or README files
- Render images in low-color environments (8 or 16 color TTYs) with theme-aware palette selection
- Build terminal UI applications that need to show image previews or thumbnails inline
- Generate ANSI art from programmatically created or filtered images using Pillow or NumPy

## Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts above — verify before relying.

Converts images to ANSI escape code sequences for display in terminal interfaces, supporting both ASCII and Unicode output with configurable color depths and terminal palettes.

Yes, if you need terminal image display and can tolerate aging maintenance. The package is stable, has no known vulnerabilities, and low install friction. However, the 684-day gap since last release and aging status suggest it may not receive bug fixes or feature updates; verify that its current behavior meets your terminal and color-depth requirements before depending on it for critical workflows.

## Install

pip install climage
uv add climage
poetry add climage

## Installing climage

Before you install: Low install friction with a pure Python wheel and only two runtime dependencies (Pillow and kdtree). Maintenance status is aging—last commit was June 2025, and the package has not been updated in 684 days, though the repository remains active and unarchived.

License in practice: MIT License is permissive and places no significant restrictions on use, modification, or distribution in commercial or private projects.

Quickstart:

pip install climage

import climage
output = climage.convert('image.png', is_unicode=True, width=50)
print(output)

Verify before relying:

- Whether kdtree dependency is a compiled extension and what system prerequisites it may require
- Performance characteristics when processing large batches of images or very large individual images
- Actual terminal compatibility across different terminal emulators and color support detection

## Package facts

- License: MIT License (permissive)
- Python support: supports_current
- Install friction: low
- Maintenance: aging
- Downloads: 74.9K/month (top 15,000 on PyPI)
- Known vulnerabilities: none known

## Tags

image to terminal display, ANSI art generator, terminal image viewer, CLI image converter, ASCII art from images, terminal graphics rendering, command line image display, terminal-graphics, ansi-art, cli-visualization

[View on SkillFed](https://skillfed.io/packages/climage) · [View on PyPI](https://pypi.org/project/climage/)