txt2png.py

txt2png.py is a Python module that takes an arbitrary blob of binary data and encodes it as pixel data within an image. The resulting image will most likely resemble random noise. The python script includes code to encode data to an image and to decode it afterwards. It's all pretty self explainatory. A few little notes:

• The resulting image size will often be smaller than the original file because I'm running the data from bzip2 first. This not only provides compression but also provides some error checking and resistance to padding characters on the end.
• Requires PIL (Python Imaging Library)
• If you try and save as a lossy image (like JPEG) you will not get your data back.
• Data is encoded in red, green, blue and alpha channels. This means you must save in a format that supports the alpha channel (like PNG.

Play with it if you want. The code is sort of documented and it has a basic CLI on it. It does work for the most part.

Examples

Here is the phrase "Hello World!" encoded.

and here is a JPG of my family.

Downloads

File	Size	Last Modified
family.jpg.png	4.59 kb	Fri May 20 12:20:43 2005
helloworld.png	0.15 kb	Fri May 20 12:13:14 2005
helloworld.txt	0.01 kb	Fri May 20 12:13:03 2005
txt2png.py-v1.tar.gz	2.42 kb	Fri May 20 12:12:30 2005