PIXELSWAP(1)

📦 version 7.44.0, in nixpkgs unstable

okay so welcome to pixelswap(1) from the BRL-CAD manual, bestie — this one is a tiny little color-swap icon and we're gonna get into it 💅✨

🌸 NAME 🌸

pixelswap — interchange two pixel colors in a pix image 🎀

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

pixelswap [-d _pixeldepth_] _r_ _g_ _b_ _R_ _G_ _B_ < input.pix > output.pix

💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

okay so pixelswap reads a stream of RGB pix(5) data from standard input and exchanges two specific colors named on the command line. The way that works: any pixel matching the first color (r g b) is rewritten as the second color (R G B), and any pixel matching the second color is rewritten as the first. All other pixels are passed through to standard output unchanged. slay, simple swap, no cap 🫶

Each of the six color components is an integer in the range 0-255. Literally all six, bestie — count them.

🚨 redirect BOTH sides, fr fr: both standard input and standard output must be redirected. pixelswap refuses to run if either is a terminal. it's giving "no terminal shenanigans" and honestly periodt 💀

Although a pixel depth may be specified with -d, the current implementation always processes 3-byte RGB pixels and ignores the requested depth. so yeah, the depth request is lowkey just vibing there 🙈

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d pixeldepth — Number of bytes per pixel (must be a positive integer). Accepted for forward compatibility but currently ignored; pixels are always treated as 3-byte RGB.
  • -h, -? — Print a usage message and exit.

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

Example 1. Recolor a rendered frame

rt -o frame.pix scene.g region > /dev/null
pixelswap 255 0 0 0 0 255 < frame.pix > swapped.pix

Ray traces a model with rt(1), then swaps every pure-red pixel for pure-blue and every pure-blue pixel for pure-red, producing swapped.pix. This is a quick way to re-key flat region colors without re-rendering the scene. iconic little workflow, honestly 👑

🌈 SEE ALSO 🌈

💜 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 🫶

okay that's the whole page, bestie 💖 — source/version sign-off: BRL-CAD and PIXELSWAP(1), and the footer date is not listed on this one. bye! 💅

📦 where this page comes from