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"The power to question is the basis of all human progress"-gandhi.

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a real programmer can write assembly code in any language

rslt=D3DXCreateTextureFromResourceEx(pDevice, GetModuleHandle( NULL ), MAKEINTRESOURCE(IDB_ISLAND), D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, 0, D3DFMT_UNKNOWN, D3DPOOL_MANAGED, D3DX_DEFAULT, D3DX_DEFAULT, 0, NULL, NULL, &m_pTextureHeightmap); D3DLOCKED_RECT lockedrect; ::ZeroMemory(&lockedrect, sizeof(lockedrect)); rslt=m_pTextureHeightmap->LockRect(0, &lockedrect, NULL, 0); if(FAILED(rslt)) { return D3DError(rslt, __LINE__, __FILE__, "Could not lock heightmap surface"); } DWORD* pBits=(DWORD*)lockedrect.pBits; int index=0; // Display offset (bytes)=((Pitch * y) + x) * Num Bytes per pixel { for(int y=0; y<256;y+=2) { for(int x=0; x<256; x+=2) { m_nHeightArray[y][x]=(getr(pBits[(y*256)+x]))/5; } } }

This is a method used in building Terrain from a height map (grayscale bmp)
Every tutorial dealing with Terrain construction from heghtmaps has a method similar to this.

If you're interested in this method here is some sites for you:

http://www.32bits.co.uk/ (directx 8 tutorilas)

http://www.c-unit.com

http://www.lighthouse3d.com/opengl/terrain/

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My projects page:
http://calinnegru.googlepages.com/projects

'As there are plants which will flourish only in mountain soil, so it appears that Mercy will flower only when it grows in the crannies of the rock of Justice; transplanted to the marshlands of mere Humanitarianism, it becomes a man-eating weed, all the more dangerous because it is still called by the same name as the mountain variety.'
The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment
by C. S. Lewis

more specifically...
http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?s=graphics

It's pretty much the same as reading and writing to a binary file really. You just need to know how the data is stored. BMP file is a lot 'nicer' to read from, however if you can, .raw files are even easier (raw colour byte information). JPG might be a bit harder as it is compressed, same with GIF.

I would recommend converting the BMP, JPG and GIF to raw colour byte format (your own data structure), and then just process that structure to calculate the ASCII graphics. That way, you can easily add in new file formats without any change to the core system.

Your structure can be as detailed as you'd like. The core stuff you'll need are:

width // of image
height // of image
data // an array which holds all the colour information (could be an array of a 'colour' structure if you want, or just X bytes between each new colour)

Hope that helps.

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www.auran.com

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a real programmer can write assembly code in any language