NAME

       pamtotga - convert a Netpbm image to a TrueVision Targa file

SYNOPSIS

       pamtotga [-mono|-cmap|-cmap16|-rgb] [-norle] [-name=name [-verhose] [pamfile]

       All  options  can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.  You may use two hyphens
       instead of one to designate an option.  You may use either white  space  or  equals  signs
       between an option name and its value.

DESCRIPTION

       This program is part of Netpbm(1).

       pamtotga reads a PBM, PGM, PPM, or PAM image as input and produces a TrueVision Targa file
       as output.  The PAM image may be either a  BLACKANDWHITE,  GRAYSCALE,  RGB,  or  RGB_ALPHA
       image.

       To create a TGA image with transparency (i.e. with a transparency mask), use RGB_ALPHA PAM
       input.  Some Netpbm programs that generate images with transparency masks generate them in
       that format.  For another way to create the proper input stream, see pamstack(1).

       It  is  unclear  that  anything  except  pamtotga knows about TGAs with transparency.  The
       history behind this feature of pamtotga is not clear.  The  format  pamtotga  produces  is
       simply  the  same  as  an  ordinary  RGB  TGA  image  except  with  a  4th plane added for
       transparency.  The PixelSize field of the TGA header specifies 32 bits instead of  24  and
       the raster has an extra byte added to each pixel, at the tail end.  The value of that byte
       has the same meaning as in a PAM image with maxval 255.

OPTIONS

       In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably -quiet,
       see
        Common  Options  ⟨index.html#commonoptions⟩  ), pamtotga recognizes the following command
       line options:

       -cmap  Make output Targa file use a color map (palette) to make the output smaller.

              Each color in the color map is 3 bytes, 8 bits each of red, green, and blue, unless
              the  input is black and white or grayscale, in which case each color in the palette
              is represented by one byte.

              Input must  contain  no  more  than  256  distinct  colors  and  must  not  contain
              transparency information.

              (The  transparency  limitation  is not a limitation of the format, but of pamtotga.
              Implementing a color map  that  contains  transparency  information  is  harder  to
              implement).

       -cmap16
              Same as -cmap, except a color map entry for full color input is 5 bits each of red,
              green, and blue, stored as two bytes (16 bits).

              Restrictions are the same as for -cmap.

              This option was new in Netpbm 10.85 (December 2018).

       -mono  Make output Targa file of type 8 bit monochrome.  Input must be PBM or PGM or a PAM
              with BLACKANDWHITE or GRAYSCALE tuple type.  See -cmap.

              You may specify at most one of -mono, -cmap, and -rgb.  If you specify neither, the
              default image type is the most highly constrained compatible type  is  used,  where
              monochrome  is  more constrained than colormapped which is in turn more constrained
              than unmapped.

       -rgb   Make output Targa file of type 24 bit unmapped color.  See -cmap.

       -norle Do not use run-length encoding in the output Targa file.  Run-length encoded  files
              are smaller, but Some Targa readers can't read run-length encoded files.

       -name=name
              This  is  the  value  for the image ID stated in the header of the TGA output file.
              pamtotga truncates it as necessary to meet TGA standards.

              By default, pamtotga uses the input file name argument, up to the first period  (or
              the  whole  thing if there is no period).  It truncates it as necessary to meet TGA
              standards.  If you specify (or default to) Standard Input, pamtotga omits the image
              ID from the TGA header.

       -verbose
              This causes pamtotga to issues messages about the conversion process.

SEE ALSO

       tgatoppm(1), pnmquant(1), pamstack(1), pam(1) pnm(1)

HISTORY

       This  program  was  called  ppmtotga  until  Netpbm  10.6  (July 2002).  That was always a
       misnomer, though, because a PPM class program would not be able  to  tell  the  difference
       between  PGM  and  PPM  input  (it would all look like PPM), and thus could not choose the
       output Targa image type based on the type of  the  input.   Netpbm  10.6  also  added  the
       ability to handle a transparency channel, so it became a PAM class program.

       In  Netpbm  10.15  (April  2003),  the  program  became the first in the Netpbm package to
       recognize a transparency channel in a PAM.  It recognized tuple  type  "RGBA".   But  when
       this  kind  of  PAM  image was later added to the PAM specification, it was specified with
       tuple type "RGB_ALPHA".  So in Netpbm 10.26 (January 2005), pamtotga changed to  recognize
       "RGB_ALPHA" instead of "RGBA".

AUTHOR

       Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 by Mark Shand and 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/pamtotga.html