pbmmake

Create a blank bitmap of the specified dimensions

$ pbmmake [width] [height] > [path/to/output_file.pbm]

$ pbmmake -[white|black|grey] [width] [height] > [path/to/output_file.pbm]

pbmmake [-white | -black] width height

-white
    Creates a solid white PBM image.

-black
    Creates a solid black PBM image.

width
    The horizontal dimension of the PBM image in pixels. Must be a positive integer.

height
    The vertical dimension of the PBM image in pixels. Must be a positive integer.

pbmmake is a command-line utility from the Netpbm package.
It is used to create a Portable BitMap (PBM) image with specified dimensions. PBM images are typically used for black and white, one-bit-per-pixel graphics.
pbmmake can generate images that are entirely black, entirely white, or filled with random black and white pixels. It reads no input, acting purely as an image generator.
The output PBM image is written to standard output, making it suitable for piping to other Netpbm tools or redirecting to a file. It's a foundational tool for quickly generating simple monochrome image data for testing or further manipulation.

pbmmake only generates monochrome (black and white) PBM images. For grayscale or color images, use pgmmake or ppmmake respectively.
It cannot generate complex patterns or images from external data; its output is limited to solid colors or random noise.

pbmmake writes the generated PBM image to standard output (stdout). This allows for seamless piping with other Netpbm tools. For example: pbmmake 100 50 | pbmtojpeg > random.jpg

If neither -white nor -black options are specified, pbmmake generates an image filled with random black and white pixels.

pbmmake is a consistent component of the Netpbm package, a suite of graphics utilities that originated from Jef Poskanzer's pbmplus package in the late 1980s.
Netpbm provides a foundational toolkit for manipulating portable pixelmap, graymap, and bitmap images. pbmmake has served as a basic image generator within this long-standing and widely used collection of tools, evolving with the Netpbm project over decades to ensure compatibility and functionality on various Unix-like systems.

pbm(5), pgmmake(1), ppmmake(1), netpbm(1), pam(1), pbmto*(1), *topbm(1)