---
name: "ale"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "ale"
version: "0.9.0.3-6"
release: "Debian 13 (Trixie)"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/ale"
---

# ale(1)

a synthetic capture engine and renderer

## NAME

ale - a synthetic capture engine and renderer

## SYNOPSIS

**ale** \[*OPTIONS*\] *original-frame* \[*supplemental-frames* ...\] *output-file*

**ale** \[*HELP OPTIONS*\]

**ale --version**

## DESCRIPTION

**ALE** is a free software synthetic capture engine and renderer accepting, as input, a sequence of image frames, and producing, as output, rendered images, registration data, and 3D models (currently experimental).

## EXAMPLES

**ale --hu**

Print the help page on program usage.

**ale 001.ppm 002.ppm 003.ppm out.ppm**

Render output file **out.ppm** from inputs **001.ppm**, **002.ppm**, and **003.ppm**.

**ale --scale 2 001.ppm 002.ppm 003.ppm out.png**

Render output file **out.png** at 2x scale.

**ale --perturb-upper=0 --trans-load=a.t --projective frame\*.png out.png**

Render output file **out.png** from inputs **frame\*.png**, using projective transformations as described in the file **a.t**.

**ale --3dv 0 out.png --projective frame\*.png null:**

Render output file **out.png** from inputs **frame\*.png**, using a 3D scene model to determine transformations.

**ale --visp last:sinc\*lanc:6 sf:0 out/ .jpg in/\*.jpg null:**

Render a video stream from files **in/\*.jpg** to the directory **out/**, stabilizing to the first frame, with a lanczos-windowed sinc filter.

## USAGE

**ale** is a wrapper script that calls the executable **ale-bin** after extracting exposure EXIF information from image files (when the **exiftool** utility is available) and converting from raw formats (when the **dcraw** utility is available).

When **ale-bin** has been linked with ImageMagick, input and output files may be of any kind supported by ImageMagick. Otherwise, only PPM files can be read and written by **ale-bin**.

## OPTIONS

*OPTIONS* are summarized via built-in help pages (see **HELP OPTIONS** below). More detailed manuals describing options and internal algorithms are available for certain versions of ALE. See **SEE ALSO** below for more details on other manuals.

## HELP OPTIONS

A listing of available help options can be obtained by invoking **ale --hu**.

## ENVIRONMENT

The wrapper script **ale** recognizes the following environment variables:

**ALE\_BIN**

ALE executable to use.

**DCRAW**

dcraw raw extraction tool to use.

**EXIF\_UTILITY**

EXIF extraction utility to use.

**ALE\_COUNT\_THREADS**

Displays statistics on thread counts when set to a non-zero value.

**PAGER**

Text pager to use (e.g., for displaying help pages).

## SEE ALSO

More detailed manuals for certain versions of ALE are distributed with source packages, and may also be available from:

http://auricle.dyndns.org/ALE/manuals/