Ask HN: Good examples of ASCII data visualization?

12 points by rishikeshs 3 days ago

I'm working on a project[1] where one constraint I have set myself is the use of plain text ASCII throughout the site.

I have the data ready but I'm looking for inspiration for projects where ASCII format was used for visualizing data. I deal with plain text cricket data, so visualizations I'm thinking about include spider charts, score worms, bee swarms, wagon wheels, etc!

Any good implementations of ASCII would be great to check out.

[1] https://criclite.com

wonger_ 3 days ago

This site might be very inspirational for you: https://plaintextsports.com/nba/2025-03-24/lal-orl

Funny too, I was just browsing through this thread today: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/123378/command-line-unix...

And https://v2.wttr.in/ is decent.

I think you'll find that ASCII-only is very limiting, and a few Unicode symbols like the Braille dots would make a big difference. That's been my experience anyways making ASCII things.

Wagon wheels in particular seem like a very tough ASCII challenge -- I'm looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

  • rishikeshs 3 days ago

    Thanks a lot for this!

    Yes the site was inspired by plaintextsports.com and I have credited them as well!

    One thing I decided was I will use only ASCII and will stay away from unicode chars. But now when I’m trying to plot a wagon wheel or a heatmap, it’s becoming tricky. i will update you once I have something solid!

vismit2000 3 days ago

Saw this very cool ASCII art here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41306128

                         +=========================+                       
                         |   THE LIQUIDITY CYCLE   |                       
                         +=========================+                       
                                                                           
                                                                           
                                             VENTURE CAPITAL               
                   _______________      ,.-^=^=^=^=^=^=^=^=^=^;,           
                 ,;===============>>   E^ a16z   LSVP    Tiger '^3.        
               .;^                    E^       FF    Social Cap. '^3       
              //  condensation       .E    Bain   SoftBank  Accel 3^       
             /|^                     ^E  KP          Benchmark    :^       
             ||                       ^;:   YC    Greylock   GC  ;3'       
     ,.^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^-^;,          ^.=.=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=_=^         
    E^ endowments    family '^:.            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\           
   E^                offices  '^3            \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\          
  E'  pension                  ^3. SOURCE     \\\ precipitation \\         
  ^;   funds       sovereign   3.' CAPITAL     \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\        
   E;:           wealth funds ,3^  (LPs)        \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\       
    ^;._.._._._._._._._._._._,^                  \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\      
                                                               /\          
      ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^                      gamefi   /\  /\  uber eats      
      | | | | | | | |                     shitcoins/::\/::\  /::::\   /\   
      | evaporation |                             / doordash/^^^^^^\ /^^\  
      | | | | | | | |         ____________       /      \  /     hello   \ 
                             (poggers desu)     /_____ lime ____ fresh ___\
    \o/ \oXo/\oXoXo/  o       '=========='       UNPROFITABLE CONSUMER APPS
     |   | |  | | |  /|\         Oo._ /\_/\                 ,///           
  __/_\_/_X_\/_X_X_\_/_\__ /_________(@'w'@)_____________.,://'            
          SOCIETY          \''''''''  -...-''''''''''''''''' surface       
                                    THE HUMBLE               runoff        
                                    CAC FARMER
anthk 3 days ago

- gnuplot

- ploot

  • rishikeshs 3 days ago

    Is gnuplot plain text ascii?

    do you mind sharing the link to ploot?

    • rl1987 3 days ago
       

        gnuplot> set terminal dumb

  Terminal type is now 'dumb'
  Options are 'feed enhanced size 79, 24 aspect 2, 1 mono noattributes'
  gnuplot> plot sin(x)

    1 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+   
      |                *  *              +  *  **         +       *  *     |   
  0.8 |-+             *   *                 *    *          sin(x* *******-|   
      |              *     *                *    *               *    *    |   
  0.6 |-+            *      *              *     *               *     * +-|   
      |              *      *             *       *             *       *  |   
  0.4 |*+            *      *             *       *             *       *+-|   
      |*            *        *            *        *           *        *  |   
  0.2 |*+           *        *            *        *           *        *+-|   
      | *          *          *          *         *          *          * |   
    0 |-*          *          *          *         *          *          *-|   
      |  *         *          *         *           *         *           *|   
 -0.2 |-+*         *          *         *           *         *          +*|   
      |  *        *            *       *             *       *            *|   
 -0.4 |-+*        *            *       *             *       *           +*|   
      |   *      *              *      *             *      *              |   
 -0.6 |-+ *     *               *     *              *      *            +-|   
      |    *    *               *     *               *     *              |   
 -0.8 |-+   *   *                *   *                 *   *             +-|   
      |     *  *       +         **  *   +             *  *                |   
   -1 +--------------------------------------------------------------------+   
     -10              -5                 0                5                10
    • anthk 3 days ago

      git://bitreich.org/ploot