catimg displays images in terminal, that is nothing new, but it’s the only one does GIFs as far as I know. It comes with two versions, one is the original Bash, another is a much faster C.

The Bash version depends on ImageMagick’s convert while C version has its one loader. Since it says

Script version is way more accurate concerning colors but considerably slower.

I think a quick comparison should be in order. The following rendered results is the image1 from this post, C on the left and Bash on the right.

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIIA8RUHlXj6aqR32ARBne7QfmJ-IINGCtfVeGIgLuub1UAstLTt49vMZcSv3rmhyphenhyphen9HGID5jZTK4resWuGP7gAlSRkp-qyrLIxDEjAlSgCNjnXq4beXB8Czc97LOSS6ResO5aa-0FmLW8/s400-Ic42/catimg.c.pnghttps://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8iMhv0z_DtQ6PLJpRZxZzk5DZ3NM3ga9Ecmu76wlec4ubZJTsq-4KoMwuo5F_UNpgpFPMalRnt3CeIFl1BzLihHbamax45XMNmMyrYkHT1lEm7I0KmZEfczGB747Ay9SciZn82rvorto/s400-Ic42/catimg.bash.png

C took only 0.042 seconds and Bash took 1.349 seconds. Bash version is 3,112% slower. By my definition, that is not considerably slower, it’s much slower.

Maybe I’m colorblind, but frankly, I like C’s result better, Bash’s somehow get a bit pinker.

catimg is written by Eduardo San Martin Morote under the MIT License, created on 2013-05-27, currently version 2.1 (2015-09-21).

[1]The original image, according to file, is JPEG image data, JFIF standard 1.01, resolution (DPI), density 72x72, segment length 16, baseline, precision 8, 800x534, frames 3, comment: “cmp3.10.3.2Lq3 0xdbea6887”, baseline, precision 8, 800x534, frames 3, baseline, precision 8, 800x534, frames 3