pcdovtoppm

Create a PPM index image from a PCD overview file

$ pcdovtoppm [path/to/file.pcd] > [path/to/output.ppm]

$ pcdovtoppm [[-m|-maxwidth]] [width] [[-s|-size]] [size] [path/to/file.pcd] > [path/to/output.ppm]

$ pcdovtoppm [[-a|-across]] [n_images] [[-c|-colors]] [n_colours] [path/to/file.pcd] > [path/to/output.ppm]

$ pcdovtoppm [[-f|-font]] [font] [[-w|-white]] [path/to/file.pcd] > [path/to/output.ppm]

pcdovtoppm [pcdov_file]

pcdovtoppm is a utility from the Netpbm image manipulation toolkit. It reads a Photo CD overview image file (often named info.ovr or similar, found in the PHOTO_CD directory on a Photo CD) and converts it into a Portable Pixmap (PPM) image file. Photo CD overview images are low-resolution thumbnails (typically 128x192 pixels) that provide a quick preview of the images on the disc without requiring full decoding of the high-resolution files. The output PPM file is a raw, uncompressed image that can then be processed further by other Netpbm tools or converted to other image formats. This command is particularly useful for quickly extracting a visual summary of a Photo CD's content. It handles the specific Photo CD overview image format and outputs a standard, widely compatible PPM.

This command specifically handles Photo CD overview images (thumbnails), not the full-resolution Photo CD images. For converting full Photo CD images, the pcdtoppm command is used. The output is a raw Portable Pixmap (PPM) file, which may require further processing with other Netpbm tools (e.g., pnmtopng or cjpeg) to convert it into more common image formats like PNG or JPEG. Ensure the input file is a valid Photo CD overview file; otherwise, the command may fail or produce corrupt output.

If no pcdov_file is specified, pcdovtoppm reads the Photo CD overview image from standard input. The converted Portable Pixmap (PPM) image is always written to standard output. This allows for easy piping with other Netpbm commands, for example:
cat info.ovr | pcdovtoppm | pnmtopng > overview.png

The pcdovtoppm command is part of the Netpbm project, a long-standing and widely used toolkit for graphic file format conversion. Netpbm itself originated in the early 1990s as a collection of tools for converting various image formats. pcdovtoppm, along with pcdtoppm, was developed to address the specific needs of converting images from Kodak Photo CD discs, a popular image storage format in the 1990s and early 2000s. Its development aligns with Netpbm's philosophy of providing small, specialized tools that can be chained together for complex image manipulations. While Photo CD is less common today, pcdovtoppm remains in the Netpbm suite, preserving the ability to access these older image assets.

pcdtoppm(1), ppm(5), netpbm(1), pam(1)