RAWTRAN(1)

✨ RAWTRAN(1) — User Commands, bestie edition ✨

okay so you found the page for rawtran, which lives in section 1 of the manual (that's the "user commands" section, the one you can actually just run, no cap). pull up a chair, we're doing this together 💖

---

🦋 NAME 🦋

rawtran — RAW to FITS converter. that's it, that's the whole vibe. your camera's weird little RAW files go in, proper astronomical FITS images come out. slay.

---

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

rawtran [options] file(s)

literally just hand it some files and some options. iconic.

---

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

so rawtran is the utility that converts raw photos — think .CR2, .CRW, MRW, NEF, RAF, etc. formats — into the general astronomical FITS image format [4]. yes, the same FITS your astro tools are obsessed with. it's giving glow-up, honestly.

the identification of the raw photo type and the decoding itself? that's all done via the DCRAW utility by D. Coffin [2]. rawtran does not do that part itself, bestie. dcraw should be available independently — so go make sure it's installed, fr fr.

this manual page summarises usage only. if you want the full lore, visit the homepage [1] for additional description. iykyk. 🧚

---

💅 OPTIONS 💅

• -c [X|Y|Z|R|V|B|clear|scotopic], [Ri,Gi,Gi1,Gi2,Bi] or [plain,all] — select a colour band. pick your filter fantasy ✨
• -o filename — specify an output file name. if you don't use this option, the output filename is determined from the input: any suffix like *.CR2 gets replaced by *.fits. and if you wanna overwrite an existing file? precede the filename with an exclamation point (!) — yes, dramatic, we love that.
• --no-clobber — do not overwrite an existing file. respectful. 🫶
• -eV — values are stored as an energy-like rather than photon-like quantity. physics girlies rise 🙈
• -D RAW dark filename — use the raw photo as a dark frame. rawtran will try to convert the file to PGM format by the dcraw recommended command dcraw -D -4 -j -t 0 file.RAW and pass it as dcraw -K file.pgm. > heads up: sometimes it can be necessary to switch-off automatic frame rotation by using the -A "-t 0" option. don't skip that if things look rotated, ok?
• -E FITS dark filename — use the FITS file as a dark frame. the FITS file must be previously converted as dcraw -D -4 -j -t 0 dark.RAW.
• -C options — conversion options for dcraw. default is -4 -o 5 for standard photometry filters and -4 -D for instrumental bands. the defaults are usually satisfactory, so lowkey just leave them alone unless you know what you're doing.
• -X options — specify options to conversion by dcraw itself. one represents default parameters: -q 3 -w. see also -A.
• -A options — specify additional options to dcraw itself. if you passed an option with a parameter or more options, please, enclose them in quotes or apostrophes. in doubts, use -X "-v" to show a detailed description of the conversion by dcraw. very main character of you to double-check 💀
• -h, --help — show summary of options. the classic.
• --version — display software version.

---

🌈 EXIT STATUS 🌈

0 indicates a successful run. a non-zero value is returned when an error occurred during conversion:

1. 1 means a general error
2. 2 means any RAW file(s) conversion has failed

and here's a lil plot twist: if the utility is launched without options or with the -h switch, then zero means that rawtran's internal checker can run the dcraw binary, and a non-zero value otherwise. so that zero is doing double duty, periodt.

---

🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

produce a colour FITS and show it in xmunipack:

$ rawtran -o IMG_0666.fits IMG_0666.CR2
$ xmunipack IMG_0666.fits

a large set of RAW images can be converted as:

$ rawtran *.CR2

convert an image to be equivalent to human eye brightness sensitivity at day:

$ rawtran -c Y -o IMG_0666_Y.fits IMG_0666.CR2

convert an image to be nearly equivalent to Landolt's B filter:

$ rawtran -c B -o IMG_0666_B.fits IMG_0666.CR2

get green component of RAW:

$ rawtran -c Gi -o IMG_0666_Gi.fits IMG_0666.CR2

subtract dark frame:

$ rawtran -D IMG_DARK.CR2 IMG_0666.CR2

every single one of these? ate. 🔥

---

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Filip Hroch <hroch@physics.muni.cz> — thank you for your service, king 👑

---

⭐ SEE ALSO ⭐

• dcraw(1)
• fitspng(1)

1. [1] Rawtran homepage: http://integral.physics.muni.cz/rawtran,
2. [2] Dcraw homepage: http://cybercom.net/~dcoffin/dcraw/,
3. [3] http://munipack.physics.muni.cz/
4. [4] http://fits.gsfc.nasa.gov/
5. [5] http://integral.physics.muni.cz/fitspng

---

and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 this was Rawtran, dated October 2018, from the RAWTRAN(1) manual — go convert something gorgeous and tag me in the results 💖✨