A C, C++ and Rust library to draw graphics with pixels in the terminal

A library to draw graphics with pixels in the terminal

Who needs a GUI when you have a terminal ?

Building

To generate libpluto.a, run:

$ make

To install it so that your compiler can use it directly, run:

# make install

To compile some examples, run:

$ make exp

Pre-compiled library files are available in the releases tab (only for Linux x86-64)

Using the library

1. Include the pluto header in your source file

#include  // do #include  if the lib is already installed

2. Write your source code. An example program which draws a line:

#include 
#include "pluto.h"									/* Change path if needed */

int main()
{
    pluto_init_window();								/* Initialize pluto */
    pluto_save_screen();								/* Save screen */

    for (;;)
    {
    	for (int i = 0; i < _pluto_canvas.cheight; i++)
    	{
	    for (int j = 0; j < _pluto_canvas.cwidth; j++)
	    {
	    	pluto_set_cpix(j, i, rand() % 256, rand() % 256, rand() % 256);		/* Set pixel with random colours */
	    }
    	}

	pluto_write_out();								/* Write to output buffer */
	pluto_render();									/* Render the output buffer */
    }

    pluto_deinit();
    return 0;
}

3. Link the library generated, for example:

$ gcc -o program program.c -lpluto  # install it before or use -L

4. You're done! Just run your program now!

Comments in the pluto.h file describe what each function/data structure does

Perlin noise using plutonem

Mandelbrot (examples/mandelbrot.c)

Image rendered using plutonem

A raycaster written with plutonem

Plutonem is tested and works on:

• Operating systems: Linux, BSD, MacOS, Windows (Cygwin or MinGW needed)
• Terminal emulators: XTerm, Termite, Konsole, GNOME-terminal, Alacritty (best performance) and Kitty

Contributing:

• Bug fixes
• Features (don't pull request too many files at once)
• Issue (GitHub issues tab) fixing

Troubleshooting

1. Check if proper fonts are installed. Pluto uses Unicode characters from U+10240(10) to U+10495(10). I recommend the Cascadia Mono font.
2. Check if your terminal supports Unicode
3. Check your locale, lang (pluto only supports UTF-8 currently). I have my locale set to en_US.UTF-8. On Arch Linux, which I use, I would use this command to set it:

# localectl set-locale LANG=en_US.UTF-8

4. Open an issue in the issues tab, provide your terminal name, what locale it is set to, and your font