term% cat index.txt INTRO(9) Kernel Developer's Manual INTRO(9)
NAME
intro - introduction to raster image software
DESCRIPTION
Plan 9 provides a suite of commands and library routines to create and
manipulate files containing gray-scale and full-color images. Section
9 of this manual is divided into subsections numbered like the main
manual sections: 9.1 for commands, 9.2 for library routines, 9.6 for
file formats.
Picture files are two-dimensional arrays of multi-byte records with a
textual header describing the dimensions of the image, the algorithm
used to encode the file, and whatever other information programs may
wish to preserve. Picfile(9.6) describes the file format; picopen(9.2)
describes a library of routines to read and write picture files.
/bin/fb contains a collection of programs to manipulate picture files.
9v displays a picture file in an 8½(1) window. Examine similarly dis‐
plays an image and allows interactive examination of its pixel values.
Picinfo displays the header of a picture file on its standard output.
Pcp copies picture files, modifying header attributes as requested and
updating the encoded picture array correspondingly. It can clip a sub‐
window out of a picture, permute, delete, and rename channels, change
the encoding type and even convert full-color images to monochrome and
vice-versa. Hed is a more brute-force version of pcp that can apply an
arbitrary sed(1) script to a picfile header. It copies the image array
verbatim and can thus convert precious images into garbage or vice-
versa.
Dumppic, gif2pic, picopic, and face2pic convert files in various alien
formats to picfile(9.6) format. Pic2ps converts picfiles to encapsu‐
lated PostScript. Nohed removes the header from a picture file. When
applied to a TYPE=dump picture this converts it into the ubiquitous
`raw dump' format. Mugs is an interactive program to convert picfiles
into 48×48 icons of the sort used by seemail (see mail(1) and face(6)).
Some commands create simple images out of whole cloth. Card writes an
image of constant color. Ramp creates an image that is one color at
one edge and changes linearly to another color at the opposite edge.
Aplot reads a square array of data points and draws an anti-aliased
perspective plot of the surface it defines.
There are numerous commands that read one or more images and write a
modified image on standard output. See remap(9.1), filters(9.1),
floyd(9.1), he(9.1), lam(9.1), lerp(9.1), logo(9.1), lum(9.1), quan‐
tize(9.1), resample(9.1), transpose(9.1), and xpand(9.1) for descrip‐
tions.
Moto is an animator's command language. It converts concise descrip‐
tions of simultaneous processes overlapping in time into sequential
command files suitable for producing frames of an animation.
SEE ALSO
Tom Duff, ``Raster Graphics in Plan 9''
Sections add(2), balloc(2), cachechars(2), subfalloc(2), bitblt(2),
event(2), frame(2), print(2), bit(3), layer(2), bitmap(6), and font(6)
describe the standard Plan 9 interactive bitmap graphics interface.
INTRO(9)