wallgen

Terminal wallpaper generator — fractals, IFS, curves, and image-to-ASCII, output as text, braille, or full-color PNG.

Gallery

Install

go install github.com/osrcmap/wallgen@latest

Or grab a prebuilt binary from the releases page.

Quick start

# interactive TUI — walks you through every option
wallgen math
wallgen image photo.jpg

# fully flagged, no TUI
wallgen math --no-tui --kind mandelbrot --aspect 16:9 --width 480 \
             --quality high --format png --palette fire --scale 4 -o wall.png

# ascii art straight to terminal
wallgen math --no-tui --kind julia --width 120 --style block

Patterns (14)

Kind	Description
mandelbrot	classic z² + c with smooth coloring
julia	filled Julia set, c = -0.7269 + 0.1889i
burning_ship	Mandelbrot variant z = (|Re| + i|Im|)² + c
newton	Newton's method on z³ − 1 — three colored basins of attraction
sierpinski	chaos-game equilateral triangle
barnsley	IFS fern, four affine maps
lissajous	Lissajous curve (a=5, b=4)
spiral	Archimedean spiral, turn count scales with quality
rose	rhodonea curve, k = 5/4
phyllotaxis	Vogel sunflower model, golden-angle dot field
interference	three-source wave interference field
plasma	sum-of-sines fractal noise
voronoi	F2 − F1 distance field over random seeds
truchet	random-orientation arc tiles

Render styles (text mode)

Style	Charset	Notes
ascii	.,:;i1tfLCG08@	works in any terminal
block	░▒▓█	Unicode shading
circle	·∘○◍◉●	dots / circles
braille	⠀..⣿ (U+2800 range)	packs 2 × 4 sub-cells per glyph → 8× density

Style applies to text, png-text, and jpg-text formats. Pixel formats (png, jpg) ignore it.

Color palettes (7)

mono · inverse · fire · ocean · viridis · rainbow · sunset

Output formats

Format	Output	Visual
text	terminal / .txt	unicode characters, single-color stdout
png / jpg	image file	colored pixel blocks via palette (no glyphs)
png-text / jpg-text	image file	rasterized font glyphs tinted by palette; braille renders as dots

Three knobs

Knob	Affects
aspect	shape (W:H) of the output
width	size - chars across (text) or canvas pixels (image). Final image = width × scale.
quality	detail per cell - fractal iterations / curve density / supersampling

Quality steps map to concrete numbers:

Quality	Fractal iter	Sample multiplier
low	60	1×
medium	150	2×
high	400	3×
ultra	1000	4×

Recipes

# 1080p wallpaper
wallgen math --no-tui --kind julia --aspect 16:9 \
             --width 480 --scale 4 --quality high \
             --format png --palette ocean -o wall.png

# 4K wallpaper
wallgen math --no-tui --kind mandelbrot --aspect 16:9 \
             --width 960 --scale 2 --quality ultra \
             --format png --palette fire -o wall_4k.png

# Phone portrait — Barnsley fern
wallgen math --no-tui --kind barnsley --aspect 9:16 \
             --width 540 --scale 4 --quality ultra \
             --format png --palette viridis -o phone.png

# ASCII art straight to terminal
wallgen math --no-tui --kind lissajous --width 120 --style braille

# Image → ASCII PNG (rasterized chars in color)
wallgen image photo.jpg --no-tui --width 160 \
             --format png-text --style ascii --palette mono \
             --scale 10 -o art.png

# Save text wallpaper to file, view in less
wallgen math --no-tui --kind interference --width 200 --style ascii -o w.txt
less -R w.txt

Text-mode preview

$ wallgen math --no-tui --kind julia --width 60 --style block --quality med

                              ██
                              ░▓▓▒
                         █ ▓▒████░  ▓  █
                         ██████▓▒█░░█▒█           █
                         ▒████▒▒▒███▓▒█░▒░    ██▒██
            ░█   ▓█      ██░░░░░▒███▓▓████▒░  ░░█▓█░█
          ░░██▓░████░▒░░  ░░░█████▓▓███████▓█▓█▓▓▒▓███░▒▒░
          █░█▓▒▒▒▓▓██▓█▓█░▒█░███▒█▓██████████▓▓█▒█▓███▓▒██▒█
    ▒▓░▒██░░░▒██████████████▒▒█▒▒██████████████▒░░░██▒░▓▒
 █▒██▒▓███▓█▒█▓▓██████████▓█▒███░█▒░█▓█▓██▓▓▒▒▒▓█░█
   ░▒▒░███▓▒▓▓█▓█▓███████▓▓█████░░░  ░░▒░████░▓██░░
        █░█▓█░░  ░▒████▓▓███▒░░░░░██      █▓   █░
          ██▒██    ░▒░█▒▓███▒▒▒████▒
          █           █▒█░░█▒▓██████
                     █  ▓  ░████▒▓ █
                           ▒▓▓░
                             ██

TUI

Running any subcommand without flags drops you into an interactive wizard. After every step the equivalent CLI command is printed, so you can copy-paste it later instead of running the TUI again.

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/osrcmap/wallgen.git
cd wallgen
go build -o wallgen .
./wallgen --help

Requires Go ≥ 1.23.

License

MIT