PNG-PIX(1)

📦
version 7.44.0 · 2 versions
, in nixpkgs unstable

💅 PNG-PIX(1) — the BRL-CAD manual page, bestie edition 🎀

okay so picture this: you've got a PNG and you need it to be a pix file. that's it. that's the whole page. let's get into it ✨

✨ NAME ✨

png-pix — turns a PNG image into a BRL-CAD pix image, no cap 💖

🦋 SYNOPSIS 🦋

png-pix [-v] [png_input_file] > pix_output_file

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

okay so png-pix decodes a Portable Network Graphics (PNG) image — like, the kind fb-png(1) or pix-png(1) would save for you — and writes it out to standard output as a pix(5) file made of bottom-to-top RGB pixels. iconic behavior honestly 👑

if you don't hand it a png_input_file, it just reads the PNG straight from standard input. lowkey flexible. we love that 🫶

now here's the glow-up section, because PNGs come in a lot of shapes and png-pix is out here doing the work:

  • Grayscale images get expanded to RGB — and yes, it'll throw a warning at you while it does it 🙈
  • palette and low bit-depth images get expanded to full 8-bit channels
  • 16-bit channels get reduced to 8 bits
  • and any alpha channel gets composited over the image background color

so basically whatever chaotic PNG format you show up with, it's leaving as a tidy pix file. main character energy fr fr 💅

⭐ OPTIONS ⭐

  • -v — Verbose mode. it prints the PNG color type, bit depth, image dimensions, background color, gamma, interlace status, embedded text chunks, and modification time — all to standard error. like a full vibe check on your image, printed for you 🌈

🍓 EXAMPLES 🍓

Example 1. Display a PNG screenshot on a framebuffer

png-pix tank.png | pix-fb -w 512 -n 512

this decodes the PNG into pix data and pipes it directly into pix-fb(1) for display — no intermediate file, we skip the middleman entirely 💀✨

heads up bestie: the width and height must match the image. don't guess! run png-pix -v tank.png to discover its dimensions first 👀

🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

brlcad(1), pix-png(1), png-fb(1), fb-png(1), png-bw(1), bw-png(1), pix(5)

like a whole friend group of converters. go say hi 💜

👑 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

if something's acting up, tell the devs — they wanna know, fr fr 🫶

and that's the page!! brought to you by the BRL-CAD manual, page PNG-PIX(1) — go convert something cute and slay the day 💖✨🎀

📦 where this page comes from