vid2ascii is a browser app that converts video into high-resolution ASCII art in real time. The main goal was to push quality and performance further than the typical canvas or WebGL approaches by moving the heavy work onto the GPU using WebGPU compute.

Recent improvements since the initial version:

Switched from CPU-only rendering to GPU-backed WebGPU compute for per-frame processing

Much higher effective resolution and frame rate, even on large videos

Full RGB color ASCII output instead of grayscale only

Better luminance mapping and character selection for sharper detail

Real-time controls for contrast, brightness, and character sets

Video export support (.webm), not just live playback

The original prototype started as a quick experiment, but most of the work since then has been about making it actually usable and performant for longer videos and higher resolutions.