PPMPAT(1)

✨ NAME ✨

ppmpat — make a pretty PPM image 💅

(and yeah, this is the Ppmpat User Manual, section 1, a General Commands Manual — welcome, bestie, you're in the right place 🫶)

---

🌈 SYNOPSIS 🌈

ppmpat [{-gingham2|-g2} | {-gingham3|-g3} | -madras | -tartan | -poles |
-squig | -camo | -anticamo | -argyle1 | -argyle2] [-color colorlist]
[-mesh] [-randomseed integer]

width height

You can abbreviate any option to its shortest unique prefix. ✨ (typing is hard, she gets it)

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

okay so. This program is part of Netpbm(1).

ppmpat produces a PPM of the specified width and height, with a pattern in it. That's the whole job and she does it gorgeously. 🎀

You could, for example, use it to create wallpaper for a computer screen. main character desktop behavior, honestly 🔥

One use of this program is as an example of the Netpbm library drawing(1) functions, which it uses. So it's a demo and a slay. Iconic.

Some of the patterns have large numbers of colors, so if you want a simpler pattern, use pnmquant on the output. no cap, if it's giving too much, quantize her down 💜

---

💖 OPTIONS 💖

In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably -quiet, see Common Options), ppmpat recognizes the following command line options:

🧵 Pattern Specification

Specify the pattern type with these options. One pattern type must be specified. (like, pick one, she's not doing all of them at once 💀)

• -gingham2, -g2 — A gingham check pattern. Can be tiled. 🍓 If you specify -color, give two colors: background and foreground, in that order.
• -gingham3, -g3 — A slightly more complicated gingham. Can be tiled. If you specify -color, give three colors: background and two foregrounds, in that order.
• -madras — A madras plaid. Can be tiled. If you specify -color, give three colors: background and two foregrounds, in that order.
• -tartan — A tartan plaid. Can be tiled. 🏴 If you specify -color, give three colors: background and two foregrounds, in that order.
• -poles — Color gradients centered on randomly-placed poles: a Voronoi diagram. 🌈 (There are many examples of this pattern in nature. One is the hide of a giraffe). 🦒 If you specify -color, give two or more colors.
• -squig — Squiggley tubular pattern. Can be tiled. 🐛 If you specify -color, give three or more colors. The first is the background color.
• -camo — Camouflage pattern. 🪖 If you specify -color, give three or more colors. The first is the background color; the others are colors for the leafy foreground shapes. The foreground shapes will probably occupy nearly the entire image, so that the background color is barely visible.
• -anticamo — Anti-camouflage pattern — like -camo, but ultra-bright colors. 🌈💥 (the opposite of hiding, she WANTS to be perceived) If you specify -color, this is the same as -camo.
• -argyle1 — A diamond argyle pattern, without a cross through the diamond, with one diamond. Can be tiled. 💎 If you specify -color, give two colors: background and foreground, in that order. This option was new in Netpbm 10.78 (March 2017).
• -argyle2 — A diamond argyle pattern, with a cross through the diamond, with one diamond. Can be tiled. 💎✝️ If you specify -color, give three colors: background, foreground, and stripe, in that order. This option was new in Netpbm 10.78 (March 2017).

🎨 Other Options

• -color colorlist — This specifies the colors to appear in the pattern. 🌸 If you do not specify this option, ppmpat chooses colors at random. (chaos mode, let her cook 🍳) Different patterns take different numbers of colors. Some can involve variable numbers of colors. If you specify a number of colors incompatible with the pattern you specify, ppmpat fails, telling you how many colors to specify. (she's not rude, she's just honest 😭) colorlist is a comma-separated list of colors. Specify each color as described for the argument of the pnm_parsecolor() library routine . Example: -color red, green, rgbi:1.0/0.5/.25 . This option was new in Netpbm 10.78 (March 2017).
• -mesh — This option affects the patterns generated by the -gingham2, -gingham3, -madras, and -tartan. When this option is not specified, when two colors intersect, the program mixes them and puts the average in the rectangular intersection region. with -mesh, the program fills that region with a checkerboard pattern consisting of the two colors. The resulting image looks like a true woven fabric, with separate threads for the separate colors. 🧶✨ (it's giving actual textile, fr fr) This option was new in Netpbm 10.97 (December 2021).
• -randomseed integer — This is the seed for the random number generator that generates the pixels. 🎲 Use this to ensure you get the same image on separate invocations. (reproducibility bestie, we love her) By default, ppmpat uses a seed derived from the time of day and process ID, which gives you fairly uncorrelated results in multiple invocations. This option was new in Netpbm 10.61 (December 2012).

---

📚 REFERENCES 📚

Some of the patterns are from "Designer's Guide to Color 3" by Jeanne Allen. (yes she cites her sources, academic queen 👑)

---

👀 SEE ALSO 👀

pnmtile(1), pnmquant(1), ppmmake(1), ppmrainbow(1), pamgradient(1), ppm(1)

---

🫶 AUTHOR 🫶

Copyright (C) 1989 by Jef Poskanzer.

---

🧚 DOCUMENT SOURCE 🧚

This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML source. The master documentation is at

http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/ppmpat.html

---

okay that's the whole page, you ate that 💅 this came from the netpbm documentation, dated 12 November 2023 — mwah, go make something pretty 🎀✨🦋