I-D(1)

📦 version 7.44.0, in nixpkgs unstable

💾 I-D(1) — the little short-to-double converter (BRL-CAD, bestie) 💾

okay so real talk: this page is i-d(1) from the BRL-CAD manual set, and it's giving "tiny utility that does exactly one thing and does it cute." let's get into it ✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

i-d — converts 16-bit short integers into doubles. that's it. that's the whole job. she's a converter, an icon, a legend 💅

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

i-d [-n | scale] < shorts > doubles

read it like a lil recipe: shorts go in, doubles come out, and you pick your scaling with either -n or a scale. 🫶

✨ DESCRIPTION ✨

okay so here's the vibe. i-d reads a stream of native, machine-format 16-bit signed short integers from standard input, multiplies every single value by a scale factor, and writes the results out to standard output as native, machine-format double-precision floating point numbers. glow up, honestly 🌈

that optional single argument is the whole personality — it picks the scaling:

  • if you hand it a numeric scale, every input value gets multiplied by it. simple. slay.
  • if you hand it -n, the scale gets set to 1.0/32768.0, so input data spanning the full short integer range maps right onto the range -1.0 to +1.0. chef's kiss 🧚
  • with no argument, the scale defaults to 1.0.
⚠️ heads up bestie: this command is deprecated and scheduled for removal, and it prints a deprecation warning on startup. she's on her way out, so don't build your whole life around her 😭

she's the inverse of d-i(1), and she's typically used in pipelines with other BRL-CAD signal-processing tools like dmod(1) and dconv(1). pipeline queen fr fr 👑

💖 OPTIONS 💖

  • -n — normalize, babes: use a scale of 1.0/32768.0 so the full 16-bit signed input range maps onto -1.0 to +1.0. Mutually exclusive with a numeric scale argument, so pick a lane 💀
  • scale — a floating point multiplier applied to every input sample during conversion. a scale of 0.0 is rejected as an error — she will not be doing that, thank u 🙈

🦋 EXAMPLES 🦋

Example 1. Normalize full-scale short samples to unit-range doubles

i-d -n < signal.pcm > signal.d

treats the values in signal.pcm as 16-bit signed samples and rescales them to the range -1.0 to +1.0, producing double-precision data in signal.d suitable for further floating point processing. literally so clean ✨

Example 2. Convert and filter in a processing pipeline

i-d -n < input.shorts | dmod -m 2.0 > louder.d

converts the 16-bit short stream to normalized doubles, then doubles the amplitude with dmod(1), leaving the result as a double-precision stream in louder.d. louder.d is right, bestie — it's giving main character energy 🔥

🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

brlcad(1), d-i(1), i-a(1), i-f(1), dconv(1), dmod(1) — go read the whole friend group, they're all iconic 👑

💜 AUTHOR 💜

BRL-CAD Team. legends, honestly 🫶

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 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. don't be shy, they wanna hear it 💌

okay that's the whole page, no cap 💅 this was page I-D(1) from the BRL-CAD manual set — thank u for coming to my ted talk, go convert some shorts into doubles responsibly, mwah 🎀🌸

📦 where this page comes from