R8TOHDF(1)

💅 R8TOHDF — bestie, it's giving raster-to-HDF glow-up ✨

okay so this is the manual page for r8tohdf from the General Commands Manual (section 1, obviously, we're in the big leagues). Pull up a chair, grab a strawberry 🍓, and let's get you fluent.

---

✨ NAME ✨

r8tohdf — convert 8-bit raster images to HDF format. that's it, that's the whole job, and she does it flawlessly 💖

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

r8tohdf [number-of-rows number-of-columns] output-filename [-p palette-
       filename] [-c] [-r] [-i] raw-raster-image-filename-1, raw-raster-
       image-filename-2, ...

like… look at her. the square brackets are the optional bits, and the ... at the end is your permission slip to pile on as many raw raster files as your little heart desires 🫶

---

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

r8tohdf converts a set of raw raster images to the HDF RIS8 format and writes them to a file. that's the entire personality. raw in, RIS8 out, slay ✨

---

👑 OPTIONS 👑

one bullet per flag, no skips, we do NOT leave options on read:

• -p pallette-file — specify the name of the palette file. (yes, "pallette", that's genuinely how it's spelled here, we don't edit the queen's paperwork 💅)
• -c — run length coding. compress the output data using run-length encoding. tiny file, big brain energy 🧠
• -i — IMCOMP compression. compress the output data using the IMCOMP method. a whole different flavour of squeeze 🍋
• -r — no compression. apply no compression to the output data. this one is the default, so if you don't say anything, she's just raw-dogging the bytes, no cap 😭

heads up bestie: if you don't pass -c, -i or -r, you're lowkey getting -r behaviour whether you asked for it or not. the default said what it said ✨

---

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

okay this is the part where it all clicks, i promise. four real scenarios, all iconic:

example 1 — palette girlie 🌈

a file named rawras contains a 256 x 512-byte raw raster image, and its palette is stored in a file name mypal. to convert the information in these files to an RIS8 without compression and store the RIS8 in a file named ras.hdf, enter the following r8tohdf command:

r8tohdf 256 512 ras.hdf -p mypal rawras

example 2 — no palette, just vibes 🦋

a 800 x 1000-byte raw raster image is stored in a file named bigpic. this data must be converted to a RIS8 without a palette, compressing it using run-length encoding, then stored in a file named bigpic.hdf. the following command will do this:

r8tohdf 800 1000 bigpic.hdf -c bigpic

example 3 — the three-pic situation 💀

a 300 x 400 raw raster image is contained in each of the files named pic1, pic2, and pic3. to convert all three files to RIS8s, compress them using the IMCOMP method, and store them in a file named pic.hdf, enter

r8tohdf 300 400 pic.hdf -i pic1 pic2 pic3

example 4 — the chaotic mixed-bag main character moment 🔥

different types of raster image data are to be stored in a file named ras.hdf. the image data in the file rawras1 will be stored without a palette. the image data sets from the file named rawras2 are to be stored with a palette extracted from a file named mypal. the images from the rawras1 and rawras2 files are to be compressed using run-length encoding, and the image in the rawras3 file is not to be compressed. the size of all images are 256 x 512 bytes. the following command is used to do this:

r8tohdf 256 512 ras.hdf -c rawras1 -p mypal rawras2 -r rawras3

see what she did there?? flags can appear between the filenames and they apply to what comes next. per-file settings, we love a flexible queen 👑

---

💜 SEE ALSO 💜

go say hi to her friends:

• hdftor8(1)
• hdf(5)

---

and that's the whole page, bestie. this one came from the General Commands Manual and it's dated November 6, 1999 — vintage, iconic, still ate 💅✨ mwah, go convert something 🎀