pixel-sorter

A command line app for pixel sorting images

If you need help, find bugs, or want a new feature: please raise an issue

Inspired by satyarth/pixelsort

Installation

Prerequisites

npm

• Install npm.
• You are downloading the command line client that lets you install pixel-sorter from the npm repository

Install (and Update) pixel-sorter

npm i -g @rusticflare/pixel-sorter

Distro Packages

AUR (Arch Linux)

pixel-sorter can be installed from the AUR using an AUR helper. e.g.

paru -S pixel-sorter

Usage

Pixel Sort Your First Image

This will pixel sort an image called example.jpg in your current directory and save the output in the same directory as example.jpg.

pixel-sorter example.jpg

Note: A one pixel border is cropped from the output file (this is due to this pixel sorter making some of those outer pixels slightly transparent)

Troubleshooting

• Powershell
  • Make sure you are running as an Administrator
  • If you see this error:

    ... cannot be loaded because the execution of scripts is disabled on this system.

    run:

    Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned

    (See this StackOverflow answer for more details)

Options

See Examples for how to use these

Option	Argument	Description	Default Value
-p	A pattern	The patterns to sort along	lines
-o	Text	The name of the output file (e.g. sorted)	The current date and time
-m	File	The path to "mask" file	N/A
-f	File	The path to a file to be used by the randomfile interval function	N/A
-a	A number in 0.0-360.0	The angle to sort along (as degrees on a compass)	0.0
-i	An interval function	The interval function to use	lightness
-l	A number in 0.0-1.0	The darkest lightness to include in sorted sections (used when the interval function is lightness)	0.25
-u	A number in 0.0-1.0	The brightest lightness to include in sorted sections (used when the interval function is lightness)	0.8
-w	A positive whole number	The average width (in pixels) of the random[file] sorted sections (used when the interval function is random[file])	400
-s	A sorting function	The sorting function to use	lightness
-e	A filetype	The extension of the filetype to output	jpg
-c	A pair of integers	The center of the circle when the circles pattern is used	0 0
-r	N/A	Reverse the sorting order	N/A
-h	N/A	Print the help message	N/A

Patterns

• lines
• circles

Interval Functions

• lightness - pixels with a lightness between the -l and -u values are sorted
• random - random sections of average width -w are sorted
• randomfile - the brighter a pixel in a file provided by -f makes a pixel more likely to be sorted (use -w to control the average width)
• none - everything is sorted

Sorting Functions

• hue
• saturation
• lightness
• intensity

Filetypes

• jpg
• png

Examples

example.jpg:

Default

pixel-sorter example.jpg

Threshold

When using the lightness interval function: only pixels with a lightness between -l and -u will be sorted.

Here we sort pixels with a lightness between 0.6 and 0.9:

pixel-sorter example.jpg -l 0.6 -u 0.9

Angle 🧭

You can change the sorting angle (as degrees on a compass).

pixel-sorter example.jpg -a 315

Circles 🟣

Sort circles with:

• center -200 -600 (0 0 is the center of the image)
• angle 210 (where the brightest and darkest pixels meet)
• reversed sort

pixel-sorter example.jpg -p circles -c -200 -600 -a 210 -r

Mask & Random 🎭

A "mask" file should be a black and white image (the same size as the sorted image). Only the white sections are considered for sorting.

-i random causes random sections of the image should be sorted. You can control the average width (in pixels) of these sections with -w.

example-mask.jpg:

pixel-sorter example.jpg -m example-mask.jpg -a 135 -i random

Random File

The brighter the pixel in -f the more likely the corresponding pixel is to be sorted.

example-randomfile-mask.jpg:

pixel-sorter example.jpg -i randomfile -f example-randomfile-mask.jpg