ppmplasma
Generate colorful plasma fractal images
TLDR
Generate plasma pattern
$ ppmplasma [width] [height] > [plasma.ppm]
With random seed$ ppmplasma -randomseed [42] [512] [512] > [plasma.ppm]
As PNG$ ppmplasma [800] [600] | pnmtopng > [plasma.png]
SYNOPSIS
ppmplasma [options] width height
DESCRIPTION
ppmplasma generates a plasma fractal image with colorful, cloud-like patterns. It uses recursive subdivision to create smooth, organic-looking textures.Part of Netpbm toolkit.
PARAMETERS
width
Image width in pixels.height
Image height in pixels.-randomseed n
Seed for reproducibility.
EXAMPLES
$ # Basic plasma
ppmplasma 640 480 > plasma.ppm
# Reproducible result
ppmplasma -randomseed 12345 512 512 > plasma.ppm
# Convert to PNG
ppmplasma 800 600 | pnmtopng > plasma.png
# Create desktop background
ppmplasma 1920 1080 | pnmtojpeg > wallpaper.jpg
ppmplasma 640 480 > plasma.ppm
# Reproducible result
ppmplasma -randomseed 12345 512 512 > plasma.ppm
# Convert to PNG
ppmplasma 800 600 | pnmtopng > plasma.png
# Create desktop background
ppmplasma 1920 1080 | pnmtojpeg > wallpaper.jpg
ALGORITHM
Uses midpoint displacement algorithm:1. Set corner colors2. Recursively subdivide3. Average colors with random displacement
CAVEATS
Fixed color palette. For grayscale output, pipe through [ppmtopgm](/man/ppmtopgm). Part of the Netpbm toolkit. Different random seeds produce different patterns.
HISTORY
ppmplasma is part of Netpbm, implementing the plasma cloud algorithm (midpoint displacement) popular in demoscene and computer graphics since the 1990s.
