Preview (source on left, result on right)
Live 24-bit ASCII video in terminal, from any source on a Windows machine.
🡒 higher resolution preview here
pip install -r requirements.txt
python dscope.pyPick a source, a color mode, enable/disable anti-aliasing, and you are live. Ctrl+C to quit.
- 5 input modes: webcam, all monitors, single monitor, application window, custom region
- 24-bit truecolor output with HSV saturation boost and darkened background fill
- Edge-aware rendering: contours snap to
|,/,-,\based on direction - Two palettes: 10-char ramp (simple) or 70-char ramp (dense, grayscale only)
- Window capture via
PrintWindow: grabs occluded or partially off-screen windows, ignores anything in front - DPI-aware capture: no offset drift on scaled displays
- Live FPS counter with exponential smoothing
- ANSI emit dedupes consecutive identical colors per row
| Source | Windows | macOS | Linux |
|---|---|---|---|
| Webcam | yes | - | - |
| Monitor | yes | yes | yes |
| Custom region | yes | yes | yes |
| App window | yes | - | - |
- Built and tuned for Windows Terminal. Works in
cmd.exeand PowerShell thanks to the VT-mode toggle, but expect lower FPS. - Webcam path uses DirectShow and window capture uses Win32 GDI. Both are Windows-only.
- On macOS / Linux the monitor and region paths still work via
mss. The other modes will be hidden / unavailable. - Known limit: hardware-accelerated apps (DirectX games, DRM video players) often return a black frame from
PrintWindow. Use the monitor mode instead.
Source-available. Free for personal and non-commercial use. No modifications, no redistribution for profit, no commercial use. See LICENSE. Contact team@dynamored.com