gouldtoppm

Convert a Gould scanner file to a PPM image

$ gouldtoppm [path/to/file.gould] > [path/to/output.ppm]

gouldtoppm [-r | -s] [-verbose] [filename]

-r
    Specifies that the input Gould image file is in the Gould R format. Use this if you are certain of the input format.

-s
    Specifies that the input Gould image file is in the Gould S format. If neither -r nor -s is provided, gouldtoppm attempts to automatically detect the format. Explicitly specifying the format is recommended for reliability.

-verbose
    Prints informational messages about the conversion process, such as detection results or progress, to standard error (stderr).

filename
    The path to the input Gould image file. If this argument is omitted, gouldtoppm reads the image data from standard input (stdin).

gouldtoppm is a utility from the Netpbm package that converts image files in the Gould R or Gould S format into a PPM (Portable Pixmap) image. The Gould formats are specific to older Gould/SEL computer systems, making this tool essential for handling legacy graphic data. The output PPM file, a simple and widely supported image format, can then be easily processed by other Netpbm tools or converted to other standard image formats like PNG, JPEG, or GIF using utilities like ppmtogif, ppmtopng, etc. By default, it reads the Gould image from standard input and writes the PPM image to standard output, adhering to the Unix philosophy of composable tools.

gouldtoppm is specifically designed for legacy Gould R and Gould S image formats. It will not process other common image formats (e.g., JPEG, PNG, TIFF) directly. The input file must strictly conform to the expected Gould format, otherwise, the conversion may fail or produce corrupted output. This tool is part of the Netpbm suite and requires the Netpbm package to be installed on your system.

By default, gouldtoppm reads the Gould image data from standard input (stdin) and writes the resulting PPM image to standard output (stdout). This design allows for seamless integration with other commands through piping, for example:
cat old_image.gould | gouldtoppm -s > new_image.ppm
or
gouldtoppm -r input.gould > output.ppm.

As a member of the Netpbm suite, gouldtoppm adheres to the Unix philosophy of small, specialized tools that can be chained together. The output PPM file, being a 'portable pixmap', can be further manipulated by dozens of other Netpbm utilities (e.g., ppmscale, ppmdither) or easily converted to a multitude of other graphics formats (e.g., GIF, PNG, JPEG).

gouldtoppm is a component of the Netpbm project, a comprehensive collection of graphics utilities that originated from the pbmplus package developed by Jef Poskanzer in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Netpbm suite has evolved significantly, becoming a widely adopted toolkit for image manipulation on Unix-like systems. Tools like gouldtoppm were created to fulfill the need for converting various historical and specialized image formats into a common, easily processable standard like PPM, PGM, and PBM, thereby ensuring interoperability and facilitating the preservation of data from legacy systems.

ppm(5), netpbm(1), anytoppm(1), ppmtogif(1), ppmtopng(1), ppm(1)