Ask HN: Good examples of ASCII data visualization?

12 pointsposted 9 days ago
by rishikeshs

Item id: 43476117

9 Comments

wonger_

9 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

9 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

9 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

9 days ago

- gnuplot

- ploot

rishikeshs

9 days ago

Is gnuplot plain text ascii?

do you mind sharing the link to ploot?

rl1987

8 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

8 days ago

git://bitreich.org/ploot