RASVIEW(1NCARG)

✨ RASVIEW 💅 (that's the 1NCARG manual, bestie)

okay so picture this: you've got a raster file. you want to see it. in an X window. that's the whole vibe of rasview — it's the Raster file previewer for the X Window System, and it literally just... shows you your pixels. iconic behavior tbh 🦋

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

rasview [ -toolkitoption ...  ] [ -ifmt format ] [ -movie ] [ -pal
palette_file ] [ -quiet ] [ -Version ] [ file.ext | - ]

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

rasview displays raster imagery from a file into an X window. no cap, that's it, that's the job.

By default, rasview figures out the format of an image file by peeking at its file name extension. like, an xwd (X11 Window Dump) file might be named foo.xwd — the .xwd is the little name tag telling rasview what it's looking at 👀

Raster image file formats come in a whole variety of flavors, and rasview attempts to support 8-bit-indexed and 24-bit-direct encodings of the image formats listed below. similarly, only output devices with 8-bit or 24-bit depth are supported. rasview attempts to select an X11 Visual which best matches the encoding of the image file. A PseudoColor visual class is preferred for 8-bit-indexed imagery, while a DirectColor... sorry, DirectColor visual class is preferred for 24-bit-direct encoded imagery. and here's the plot twist 🫢 — in the case of 24-bit-direct encodings, if the output device only has 8-bit color, the imagery is color-quantized down to 8 bits. it's giving "making it work with what we've got."

In general, raster files contain only a single image. but rasview is able to display multiple-image raster files if they were created by the concatenation of single-image files with the rascat(1NCARG) utility, or if they were generated by ctrans(1NCARG). Multi-frame image files generated by other means are not guaranteed to be displayable by rasview. so like, don't come for her if your weird hand-rolled multi-frame file doesn't play nice 💀

See ras_formats(5NCARG) for a list of supported image formats. she's got receipts 📋

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

rasview accepts all of the standard X Toolkit command line options (see X11(7)). and also, she accepts the following, because she's generous like that 🎀

• -ifmt format — Specify the input file format. format is one of the aforementioned file name extensions (without the ".", e.g. xwd). When this option is specified, file name extensions are not necessary and are ignored if present. All input files must have the same format. (yes bestie, ALL of them, no mixing 😤)
• -movie — Normally when processing multi-image raster files, rasview waits for a mouse click before proceeding to the next frame. When this option is used, rasview immediately advances the frame after rasview has completed drawing it. it's giving cinema 🎬 autoplay energy.
• -pal palette_file — Use the color palette contained in the file palette_file for displaying images. This palette will override the color palette stored with the image. she said YOUR palette, not the image's 💅 See ras_palette(5NCARG) for a description of palette file forats. (yes, "forats" — that's what the original says, we keep the typo, it's canon now 🙈)
• -quiet — Operate in quiet mode. 🤫
• -Version — Print the version number and then exit. (capital V, don't forget, she's picky about that 👑)
• - — Read rasterfile from standard input (-ifmt option required). pipe it in, bestie 🌈

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🔍 SEE ALSO 🔍

• ctrans(1NCARG)
• rascat(1NCARG)
• ras_formats(5NCARG)
• ras_palette(5NCARG)
• xwd(1)
• xwud(1)
• X11(7)

Hardcopy: NCAR Graphics Fundamentals, UNIX Version 📚

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💀 BUGS/CAVEATS 💀

rasview does not respond to redraw events. so if something covers your window and then moves away? yeah. she's not repainting. it is what it is, fr fr 😭

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

Copyright (C) 1987-2009 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research

The use of this Software is governed by a License Agreement.

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and that's the whole page, bestie — brought to you by the NCARG crew, dated January 1993, which is lowkey giving vintage but the vibes are timeless 🫶✨