PIX2ASC/ASC2PIX(1)

📦 version 7.42.2, in nixos 26.05

💅 PIX2ASC/ASC2PIX(1) 💅

okay so welcome to the BRL-CAD manual page for pix2asc and asc2pix, bestie. this is the whole vibe: tiny filters that move color pixel files between binary and portable ASCII like it’s no big deal 💖

✨ NAME ✨

  • pix2asc, asc2pix — encode and decode color pixel files

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

pix2asc < file.pix > file.asc

asc2pix < file.asc > file.pix

💫 DESCRIPTION 💫

pix2asc and asc2pix are simple filters — literally just little conversion besties — that convert color pix(5) files from their binary form to a portable ASCII form, and back again. pix2asc reads the binary file on standard in and writes ASCII on standard out. asc2pix does the reverse. slay.

The binary file consists of a sequence of three-tuples of unsigned chars representing the red, green, and blue intensities for each pixel. so: R, G, B, stacked up like lil pixel triplets. The ASCII version of the file has one RGB pixel per newline-terminated line, with each pixel represented as six hexadecimal digits. cute, portable, hex-y.

When moving pix(5) files between UNIX systems via tape (see tar(1) and cpio(1)) or via network (see rcp(1) and ftp(1)), this conversion to ASCII is unnecessary, as all UNIX files are byte streams, regardless of the underlying hardware. yep — UNIX is already out here being a byte stream, no cap. However, when transporting images to non-UNIX machines, these tools are invaluable. that’s the main-character use case, fr fr.

Note that rt(1) can directly generate the ASCII form of an image file using the -O flag, allowing it to be easily used on non-UNIX systems. iconic behavior.

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

BRL-CAD Team

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2025 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

🐛 BUG REPORTS 🐛

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org

later bestie! this lil masterpiece is BRL-CAD, dated 01/01/1980, and it’s the PIX2ASC/ASC2PIX(1) page 💖✨

📦 where this page comes from