---
name: "pgmkernel"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "netpbm"
version: "10.86.51-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/pgmkernel"
---

# pgmkernel(1)

generate a convolution kernel

## NAME

pgmkernel - generate a convolution kernel

## SYNOPSIS

**pgmkernel** \[**-weight=***number*\] \[**-maxval=**\] {*size* \| *width* *height*}

Minimum unique abbreviation of option is acceptable.  You may use double hyphens instead of single hyphen to denote options.  You may use white space in place of the equals sign to separate an option name from its value.

## DESCRIPTION

This program is part of **Netpbm**(1) .

**pgmkernel** generates a convolution kernel that you can use with **pnmconvol**.  The kernel is one where the weight of each location is inversely proportional to its distance from the center of the kernel.

**pgmkernel** generates a PGM image of width and height *size* if you specify one argument, or width *width* and height *height* if you specify two arguments.

**pgmkernel** computes the convolution function K as follows.

K(i,j) = 1 / ( 1 + w \* sqrt(i^2 + j^2))

where *w* is a coefficient specified via the **-weight** option.  *i* and *j* are measured in pixels.  K is zero everywhere beyond the specified kernel width and height.

The sample values in the PGM output have this value scaled and biased using the protocol **pnmconvol** specifies for representing the real numbers K in PGM.

## OPTIONS

In addition to the options common to all programs based on libnetpbm (most notably **-quiet**, see \
  Common Options ⟨index.html#commonoptions⟩ ), **pgmkernel** recognizes the following command line options:

- **-weight=***number*

  The distance from the center is weighted by this; a higher number means the value falls off more quickly as you go away from the center.

  This must be a positive real number.

  The default is 6.0.

- **-maxval=***maxval*

  The maxval for the PGM kernel.

  Default is 255.

  This option was new in Netpbm 10.65 (December 2013).  Before that, the maxval is always 255.

## LIMITATIONS

The computation time is proportional to *width*\**height*. This increases rapidly with the increase of the kernel size.  A better approach could be using a FFT in these cases.

## HISTORY

Before Netpbm 10.65 (December 2013), the output was always in Plain (text) PGM format.  (Now, like standard Netpbm programs, the default is raw PGM and you can get Plain PGM with a **-plain** option).

Before Netpbm 10.65 (December 2013), this manual said negative values for **-weight** were valid (as long as they were greater than -1.0).  But the program never worked with negative numbers and it isn't clear that the result would be useful, so **-weight** is now required to be nonnegative and the program fails gracefully if you specify a negative value.

## SEE ALSO

[**pnmconvol**(1)](/pnmconvol/1.md) , [**pnmsmooth**(1)](/pnmsmooth/1.md) [**pamgauss**(1)](/pamgauss/1.md) **pgm**(1)

## AUTHOR

Alberto Accomazzi (*alberto@cfa.harvard.edu*).

## DOCUMENT SOURCE

This manual page was generated by the Netpbm tool 'makeman' from HTML source.  The master documentation is at

-

  **http://netpbm.sourceforge.net/doc/pgmkernel.html**