pnmscale(1) General Commands Manual pnmscale(1)
NAME
pnmscale - scale a portable anymap
SYNOPSIS
pnmscale scale_factor [pnmfile]
pnmscale -reduce reduction_factor [pnmfile]
pnmscale [{-xsize=cols | -width=cols | -xscale=factor}] [{-ysize=rows |
-height=rows | -yscale=factor}] [pnmfile]
pnmscale -xysize cols rows [pnmfile]
pnmscale -pixels n [pnmfile]
Miscellaneous options:
-verbose -nomix
Minimum unique abbreviation of option is acceptable. You may use dou-
ble hypens instead of single hyphen to denote options. You may use
white space in place of the equals sign to separate an option name from
its value.
DESCRIPTION
Reads a PBM, PGM, or PPM image as input, scales it by the specified
factor or factors and produces a PGM or PPM image as output. If the
input file is in color (PPM), the output will be too, otherwise it will
be grayscale (PGM). This is true even if the input is a black and
white bitmap (PBM), because the process of scaling can turn a combina-
tion of black and white pixels into a gray pixel.
If you want PBM output, use pgmtopbm to convert pnmscale's output to
PBM. Also consider pbmreduce.
You can both enlarge (scale factor > 1) and reduce (scale factor < 1).
When you specify an absolute size or scale factor for both dimensions,
pnmscale scales each dimension independently without consideration of
the aspect ratio.
If you specify one dimension as a pixel size and don't specify the
other dimension, pnmscale scales the unspecified dimension to preserve
the aspect ratio.
If you specify one dimension as a scale factor and don't specify the
other dimension, pnmscale leaves the unspecified dimension unchanged
from the input.
If you specify the scale_factor parameter instead of dimension options,
that is the scale factor for both dimensions. It is equivalent to -xs-
cale=scale_factor -yscale=scale_factor .
Specifying the -reduce reduction_factor option is equivalent to speci-
fying the scale_factor parameter, where scale_factor is the reciprocal
of reduction_factor.
-xysize specifies a bounding box. pnmscale scales the input image to
the largest size that fits within the box, while preserving its aspect
ratio.
-pixels specifies a maximum total number of output pixels. pnmscale
scales the image down to that number of pixels. If the input image is
already no more than that many pixels, pnmscale just copies it as out-
put; pnmscale does not scale up with -pixels.
If you enlarge by a factor of 3 or more, you should probably add a pn-
msmooth step; otherwise, you can see the original pixels in the result-
ing image.
When the scale factor is not an integer (including all cases of scaling
down), there are two ways to do the scaling. Which one pnmscale does
is controlled by its -nomix option.
By default, pnmscale mixes the colors of adjacent pixels to produce
output pixels that contain information from multiple input pixels.
This makes the image look more like it would if it had infinite resolu-
tion. Note that it means the output may contain colors that aren't in
the input at all.
But if you specify -nomix, pnmscale never mixes pixels. Each output
pixel is derived from one input pixel. If you're scaling up, pixels
get duplicated. If you're scaling down, pixels get omitted. Note that
this means the image is rather distorted. If you scale up by 1.5 hori-
zontally, for example, the even numbered input pixels are doubled in
the output and the odd numbered ones are copied singly.
When the scale factor is an integer (which means you're scaling up),
the -nomix option has no effect -- output pixels are always just N
copies of the input pixels. In this case, though, consider using pam-
stretch instead of pnmscale to get the added pixels interpolated in-
stead of just copied and thereby get a smoother enlargement.
pnmscale with -nomix is faster than without, but pnmenlarge is faster
still. pnmenlarge works only on integer enlargements.
A useful application of pnmscale is to blur an image. Scale it down
(without -nomix ) to discard some information, then scale it back up
using pamstretch.
Or scale it back up with pnmscale and create a "pixelized" image, which
is sort of a computer-age version of blurring.
PRECISION
pnmscale uses floating point arithmetic internally. There is a speed
cost associated with this. For some images, you can get the acceptable
results (in fact, sometimes identical results) faster with pnmscale-
fixed, which uses fixed point arithmetic. pnmscalefixed may, however,
distort your image a little. See pnmscalefixed's man page for a com-
plete discussion of the difference.
SEE ALSO
pnmscalefixed(1), pamstretch(1), pbmreduce(1), pnmenlarge(1), pn-
msmooth(1), pnmcut(1), pnm(5)
AUTHOR
Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 by Jef Poskanzer.
04 November 2000 pnmscale(1)
Generated by dwww version 1.14 on Wed Jan 22 15:16:31 CET 2025.