netpbmfile

Netpbmfile is a Python library to read and write image files in the Netpbm or related formats:

PBM (Portable Bit Map): P1 (text) and P4 (binary)
PGM (Portable Gray Map): P2 (text) and P5 (binary)
PPM (Portable Pixel Map): P3 (text) and P6 (binary)
PNM (Portable Any Map): shorthand for PBM, PGM, and PPM collectively
PAM (Portable Arbitrary Map): P7, bilevel, gray, rgb, and arbitrary depths
PGX (Portable Graymap Signed): PG, signed grayscale
PFM (Portable Float Map): Pf (gray), PF (rgb), and PF4 (rgba), read-only
XV thumbnail: P7 332 (rgb332), read-only

The Netpbm formats are specified at https://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/.

The PGX format is specified in ITU-T Rec. T.803.

No gamma correction or scaling is performed.

Author:: Christoph Gohlke
License:: BSD-3-Clause
Version:: 2026.7.25
DOI:: 10.5281/zenodo.17903402

Quickstart

Install the netpbmfile package and all dependencies from the Python Package Index:

python -m pip install -U "netpbmfile[all]"

See Examples for using the programming interface.

Source code and support are available on GitHub.

Requirements

This revision was tested with the following requirements and dependencies (other versions may work):

CPython 3.12.10, 3.13.14, 3.14.6, 3.15.0b4 64-bit
Numpy 2.5.1

Revisions

2026.7.25

Drop support for Python 3.11 and numpy 2.0 (SPEC0), support Python 3.15.

2026.1.29

Fix code review issues.

2026.1.8

Improve code quality.

2025.12.12

Drop support for Python 3.10, support Python 3.14.

2025.5.8

Remove doctest command line option.

2025.1.1

Improve type hints.
Drop support for Python 3.9, support Python 3.13.

2024.5.24

Refer to the CHANGES file for older revisions.

Examples

Write a numpy array to a Netpbm file in grayscale binary format:

>>> import numpy
>>> data = numpy.array([[0, 1], [65534, 65535]], dtype=numpy.uint16)
>>> imwrite('_tmp.pgm', data)

Read the image data from a Netpbm file as numpy array:

>>> image = imread('_tmp.pgm')
>>> numpy.testing.assert_equal(image, data)

Access meta and image data in a Netpbm file:

>>> with NetpbmFile('_tmp.pgm') as pgm:
...     pgm.magicnumber
...     pgm.axes
...     pgm.shape
...     pgm.dtype
...     pgm.maxval
...     pgm.asarray().tolist()
...
'P5'
'YX'
(2, 2)
dtype('>u2')
65535
[[0, 1], [65534, 65535]]

View the image and metadata in the Netpbm file from the command line:

$ python -m netpbmfile _tmp.pgm

Metadata

Release files for netpbmfile 2026.7.25

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for netpbmfile 2026.7.25
File	Size	Uploaded
netpbmfile-2026.7.25.tar.gz	31.1 kB	Jul 25, 2026	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for netpbmfile 2026.7.25
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
netpbmfile-2026.7.25-py3-none-any.whl 14.4 kB Jul 25, 2026	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 45.5 kB

Release files / netpbmfile-2026.7.25.tar.gz

Download URL	netpbmfile-2026.7.25.tar.gz
Size	31.1 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`7e8556b0a4507ef062158a2ae26a93e1e7e9419530c30d209ce5474e68ee4e6e`
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Upload date	Jul 25, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.14.6`

Release files / netpbmfile-2026.7.25-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	netpbmfile-2026.7.25-py3-none-any.whl
Size	14.4 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`d14d90ec0c17a223e3732f16a190b8681b3801993e6bbb33a1d3dfcae4f2448d`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`ef6ce7b55367f35b35c7cda412a48cdf4767c20d23b58ef7c03265f329b1c312`
Upload date	Jul 25, 2026
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/6.2.0 CPython/3.14.6`