Download and install the latest version of Filestar.
Right click on one or more Dds file(s) on your desktop and select Convert with Filestar.
Type convert to sixel in the search box.
Press Convert.
Or let an AI agent do it: filestarcli -i photo.dds -c "convert to sixel" (how).
Let your AI agent convert DirectDraw Surface (DX10) to SIXEL
Claude Code, Codex, Cursor and other agents can do this on your computer with Filestar. Your files stay on your machine.
Install Filestar and add it to your agents:
npm install -g filestar
filestarcli agent install
Then ask your agent:
“Convert the DirectDraw Surface (DX10) files in my Downloads folder to SIXEL”
Or run it yourself:
filestarcli -i photo.dds -c "convert to sixel"
Runs on your computer, so your files stay on it. Works on Windows, macOS and Linux. 50 free conversions with the npm install, no account needed.
Can my AI agent convert DirectDraw Surface (DX10) to SIXEL?
Yes. Install the Filestar CLI with npm install -g filestar and your agent can run filestarcli -i photo.dds -c "convert to sixel" on your computer, so your files stay on it.
A DDS DX10 file is a raster image saved in the DirectDraw Surface (DDS) container format whose DX10 extension header selects a DirectX 10 or newer texture format. It stores the texture data in one of Microsoft's DXGI formats — block-compressed GPU textures (BC1–BC7), high-dynamic-range BC6H data or uncompressed formats — and is mostly used for textures, normal maps and cube maps in modern games. Legacy DDS readers often fail on these files.
Created by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC), SIXEL is a bitmap image format in an escaped sequence (seen as six pixels high and one pixel wide). You have to convert it into a more accessible format if you don’t have a DEC terminal to view it.
