PLOT3GETFRAME(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

💖 plot3getframe — like, the whole manual, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, so this is plot3getframe(1), one of the BRL-CAD girlies 🌸 — she's a tiny little tool with one job and she does it flawlessly. no cap.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

plot3getframe [-v] desired_frame < unix_plot > frame_plot

read it like a sentence, okay? you give her a number, she gives you a frame. that's it. that's the whole vibe. 💅

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

so plot3getframe reads a multi-frame plot3(5) (UNIX plot) file from standard input and writes exactly one single frame to standard output. one. girl. only. 🎀

the frames are delimited by the plot "erase" (e) command — that's the divider between them, iykyk — and the first frame is numbered 0. yes, zero. computer math. we love her.

every plot command that belongs to desired_frame gets copied verbatim — untouched, character for character, she does not edit your art 😤 — while commands in all the other frames are silently discarded. not deleted dramatically. not complained about. just… gone. quietly. 🙈

and here's the slay part: because BRL-CAD 3-D UNIX plot is a superset of the standard UNIX plot format, this program can process ordinary 2-D plot files too. so she's not just a 3-D girlie, she's versatile. main character energy honestly. 👑

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • -v — Verbose. prints the number of each frame as it's counted, out to standard error. highkey the move when you wanna know what's actually in the file instead of just trusting the vibes. 🔥

🌈 EXAMPLES 🌈

Example 1. Extract a single frame and convert it to a PostScript image

plot3getframe 2 < animation.plot3 | plot3-ps > frame2.ps

this pulls the third frame (frame 2, because zero-indexing is a lifestyle 💀) out of a multi-frame plot file that some animation pipeline made, then pipes it straight into plot3-ps(1) so that one frame gets rendered as a PostScript file. chef's kiss. 🍓

Example 2. Report frame numbers while extracting the first frame

plot3getframe -v 0 < animation.plot3 > first.plot3

writes frame 0 into first.plot3, and with -v it also lists the frame numbers it encounters on standard error — so you can confirm how many frames the input actually contains. it's giving detective. 🔍

🫶 SEE ALSO 🫶

brlcad(1), plot3-ps(1), plot3-plot3(1), plot3-asc(1), plot3stat(1), plot3(5), libbv(3)

like, go read those too, they're her friends and they're all iconic 💜

👑 AUTHOR 👑

BRL-CAD Team 🌟

This software is Copyright (c) 1989-2026 by the United States Government as represented by U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

yes bestie, that's the real copyright line, don't touch it — legal girlies do not play 🙏

😭 BUG REPORTS 😭

Reports of bugs or problems should be submitted via electronic mail to devs@brlcad.org — and pls be nice, they're literally doing their best 🧚

and that's the whole page! brought to you by the BRL-CAD girlies, dated PLOT3GETFRAME(1) o'clock, 2026 edition — mwah, love u, go extract some frames 💖✨🎀

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