{
    "mode": "man",
    "parameter": "pamtopfm",
    "section": "1",
    "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pamtopfm/1/json",
    "generated": "2026-09-01T14:57:42Z",
    "synopsis": "pamtopfm [-endian={big|little}] [-scale=float] [imagefile]\nAll  options can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.  You may use two hyphens in‐\nstead of one.  You may separate an option name and its value with white space instead  of  an\nequals sign.",
    "sections": {
        "NAME": {
            "content": "pamtopfm - Convert Netpbm image to PFM (Portable Float Map)\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "SYNOPSIS": {
            "content": "pamtopfm [-endian={big|little}] [-scale=float] [imagefile]\n\nAll  options can be abbreviated to their shortest unique prefix.  You may use two hyphens in‐\nstead of one.  You may separate an option name and its value with white space instead  of  an\nequals sign.\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DESCRIPTION": {
            "content": "This program is part of Netpbm(1).\n\npamtopfm  reads a Netpbm image (PNM or PAM) and converts it to a PFM (Portable Float Map) im‐\nage.\n\nThe PFM (Portable Float Map) image format is a lot like PPM, but uses floating point  numbers\nwith  no  maxval  to achieve a High Dynamic Range (HDR) format.  That means it doesn't have a\nconcept of absolute color and it can represent generic  light  intensity  information  rather\nthan just visual information like PPM does.  For example, two pixels that are so close in in‐\ntensity  that the human eye cannot tell them apart are not visually distinct, so a visual im‐\nage format such as PPM would have no reason to use different sample values for them.  But  an\nHDR format would.\n\nThere are details of the PFM format in the PFM Format Description\" (1).\n\n\u001b]8;;https://vgl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/\u001b\\USC's HDRShop program\u001b]8;;\u001b\\  and a program called Lefty use it.\n\npamtopfm creates a color PFM image if its input is RGB (PPM) and a non-color PFM otherwise.\n\nUse pfmtopam(1) to convert a PFM image to Netpbm format.\n\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "OPTIONS": {
            "content": "In  addition  to  the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably -quiet,\nsee \u001b]8;;index.html#commonoptions\u001b\\ Common Options\u001b]8;;\u001b\\ ), pamtopfm recognizes the following command line options:\n\n\n",
            "subsections": [
                {
                    "name": "-scale=_",
                    "content": "This specifies the scale factor of the PFM image.\nScale factor is a component of the PFM format.\nDefault is 1.0.\n\n"
                },
                {
                    "name": "-endian=",
                    "content": "This specifies the endianness of the PFM image.  The samples\nin the raster of a PFM image are 4 byte IEEE floating point\nnumbers.  A parameter of the IEEE format, and therefore the PFM\nformat, is endianness, i.e. whether the specified bytes are\nordered from low addresses to high addresses or vice versa.\n\nbig means big endian -- the natural ordering;\nlittle means little-endian, the Intel-friendly ordering.\n\nDefault is whichever endianness the machine on which pamtopfm\nruns uses internally, which results in the faster execution.\n\n\n\n"
                }
            ]
        },
        "SEE ALSO": {
            "content": "Netpbm(1), pfmtopam(1), pam(1)\n\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "HISTORY": {
            "content": "pamtopfm was added to Netpbm in Release 10.22 (April 2004).\n",
            "subsections": []
        },
        "DOCUMENT SOURCE": {
            "content": "This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from  HTML  source.   The  master\ndocumentation is at\n\nhttp://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pamtopfm.html\n\nnetpbm documentation                        10 April 2004                    Pamtopfm User Manual(1)",
            "subsections": []
        }
    },
    "summary": "pamtopfm - Convert Netpbm image to PFM (Portable Float Map)",
    "flags": [
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "This specifies the scale factor of the PFM image. Scale factor is a component of the PFM format. Default is 1.0."
        },
        {
            "flag": "",
            "long": null,
            "arg": null,
            "description": "This specifies the endianness of the PFM image. The samples in the raster of a PFM image are 4 byte IEEE floating point numbers. A parameter of the IEEE format, and therefore the PFM format, is endianness, i.e. whether the specified bytes are ordered from low addresses to high addresses or vice versa. big means big endian -- the natural ordering; little means little-endian, the Intel-friendly ordering. Default is whichever endianness the machine on which pamtopfm runs uses internally, which results in the faster execution."
        }
    ],
    "examples": [],
    "see_also": [
        {
            "name": "Netpbm",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/Netpbm/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "pfmtopam",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pfmtopam/1/json"
        },
        {
            "name": "pam",
            "section": "1",
            "url": "https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/pam/1/json"
        }
    ]
}