PIXBACKGND(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

✨ PIXBACKGND 💅 (that's the pixbackgnd manual page, bestie)

okay so real talk, pixbackgnd is that girl in the BRL-CAD friend group who makes backgrounds ✨

🌈 NAME 🌈

pixbackgnd — generate a pix(5) shaded background 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

pixbackgnd [-H] [-i] [-s squaresize] [-w width] [-n height] [-t title_height] [-a top_inten] [-b bottom_inten] hue saturation > file.pix
pixbackgnd [-H] [-i] [-s squaresize] [-w width] [-n height] [-t title_height] [-a top_inten] [-b bottom_inten] red green blue > file.pix

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

pixbackgnd generates a pix(5) format shaded background on standard output, and it's literally made for being the backdrop of your presentation slides. main character energy only. 👑

The color gets specified one of two ways: either as a hue and saturation pair, or as an explicit red green blue triple. both ways, the component values range from 0 to 255 inclusive, and you can pick them interactively with fbcolor(1) if you're feeling fancy. fun fact: a hue of 160 is a pleasing blue. 💙

So here's the glow-up sequence, in order:

  1. The upper title_height scanlines are drawn at the constant top intensity.
  2. Then there's a 4 scanline white bar. yes, 4. she's small but she's doing her job. 🤍
  3. After that, the intensity of your chosen color smoothly ramps down to the bottom intensity over the remainder of the image. it's giving gradient slay.

By default the top intensity is 240 and the bottom intensity is 50. want different numbers? override them with the -a and -b options, no cap.

The output defaults to 512x512 pixels. The -w and -n options set the width and height independently, while -s sets both at once. and the -H flag selects a 1024x1024 image and also raises the title area to 90 scanlines. highkey a whole glow-up. ✨

🚨 Output is written to standard output and must be redirected to a file or pipe. pixbackgnd flat-out refuses to write pix(5) data to a terminal. she said not today 💀

🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

  • -H — High resolution. Produce a 1024x1024 image instead of 512x512, and set the title height to 90 scanlines. big girl mode.
  • -i — Invert the output, writing scanlines top to bottom rather than the bottom-to-top order normally used for pix(5) data. flip it and reverse it 🔄
  • -s squaresize — Set both the width and the height to squaresize pixels. one number, two jobs, she's efficient 💅
  • -w width — Set the output width to width pixels.
  • -n height — Set the output height to height pixels.
  • -t title_height — Set the height in scanlines of the constant-intensity title area at the top of the image (default 80, or 90 with -H). 🎀
  • -a top_inten — Set the top (starting) intensity in the range 0 to 255 (default 240). start strong ⭐
  • -b bottom_inten — Set the bottom (ending) intensity in the range 0 to 255 (default 50). soft landing 🍓

🧚 EXAMPLES 🧚

Example 1. Composite a foreground image onto a shaded backdrop

pixbackgnd 160 200 | pixmerge fg.pix - | pix-fb

Generate a blue shaded background (hue 160, saturation 200), merge an existing foreground image fg.pix over it with pixmerge(1), and display the result on a framebuffer with pix-fb(1). the pipes are piping, honestly 🔥

Example 2. Produce a high-resolution untitled backdrop

pixbackgnd -H -a 200 -b 30 160 200 > backdrop.pix

Write a 1024x1024 backdrop with a stronger top-to-bottom intensity ramp (from 200 down to 30) to the file backdrop.pix for later compositing. save her for later, she's worth it 💜

👑 SEE ALSO 👑

brlcad(1), fbcolor(1), pix-fb(1), pixmerge(1), pix(5)

iykyk 🫶

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

BRL-CAD Team 🎀

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. not me being the one to tell you, but fr fr, they wanna know 💌

okay that's the whole page, bestie, go make something iconic ✨ and yeah — this was PIXBACKGND(1) from BRL-CAD, so shoutout to the BRL-CAD girlies, mwah 💅💖

📦 where this page comes from