/īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD /īCiD Pros and Cons to GIF to ANSI Converters Throughout the duration of my ANSI art career, there have been many tricks to produce the 'easy' ANSI. One such tool of wonder is a program that converts a VGA picture into ANSI. I was at first quite excited yet skeptical about what results I was going to obtain. This article is a report of the results I obtained by using the graphics converter. Using a SVGA/VGA GIF picture I found the are if the GIF that could be converted to ANSI is quite a small percentage of the whole GIF. I was also forced to zoom in many times on the GIF in order to reach a recognizable ANSI screen... recognizable only if you were standing 20 feet from the monitor. The resolution of the GIF was so high that is was nearly impossible to get distinguishable ANSI out of it. The shading of the ANSI was very rough, and though it provided a fair outline shape, much had to be modified to reach a decent picture. Hoping that I would reach more success with a lower GIF resolution, I tried an EGA bitmap. Shading of the converted ANSI was fair, but again I was forced to stand 10 feet away to get a clear picture. I suppose this might do for a public domain artist, but no way would it receive praise from the ANSI gods in ACiD. Going even farther down the graphic scale, CGA resolution proved a fair result. I was able to convert more of the GIF, and since there is little to no shading in a CGA GIF, the ANSI came out satisfactory. This was swell and fine but two problems then arose. One, there aren't many CGA GIFs out there to convert, so finding a decent picture would be difficult. Second, although the ANSI was ok, any artist could do the same if not better by hand using The Draw. besides the VGA to ANSI converter being graphically bad, it is downplayed as artistically wrong. There is an unwritten code that every artist must follow. An elite artist doesn't look for the easy way out, instead he is praised for his talent, the skill of changing a blank, void computer screen into 25 lines and 80 columns of exploding colors, eye-catching graphics, and unique fonts. So in my opinion as a member of ACiD, this program is a serious waste of time. TANK