c64tools

charpacker

Using “charpacker.py”

Charpacking converts a bitmap into a character set and a screen, used either for reducing the overall size, for generating larger fonts, or for allowing other effects, such as changing multi-colours in each raster line.

charpacker.py” loads an image file (.gif, e.g.) and performs the charpacking — indexing same 8×8 pixel characters. It is somehow a Python-version of the original c64 charpacker “Abraham”.

Options

The tool has to be started with the following options set:

  • --file/-f <IMAGE_FILE_TO_LOAD>: the image to charpack
  • --screen-output/-s <SCREEN_OUTPUT_FILENAME>: the name of the file to write the screen to
  • --charset-output/-c <CHARSET_OUTPUT_FILENAME>: the name of the file to write the charset

Examples

charpacker -f logo.png -s screen.bin -c charset.bin 

Loads an image from “logo.png”, charpacks it, and writes the resulting screen to “screen.bin” and the resulting charset to “charset.bin”.

A window will be shown, similar to the one shown in the following image.

Charpacker window

The window shows the loaded image three-wise.

  • First, the loaded image as-is is shown.
  • Then, the image converted to b/w is shown.
  • Then, the charpacked image is shown.

Embedding

Besides using the charpacker as a command line application, you may as well import it in your Python application and use the charpack method within a script. You may then incrementally fill a character set from a different bitmaps by passing the results of initial steps as the second parameter.