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

# ppmwheel(1)

make a PPM image of a color wheel

## NAME

ppmwheel - make a PPM image of a color wheel

## SYNOPSIS

**ppmwheel** *diameter* \[{**-huevalue** \| **-huesaturation**}\] \[**-maxval=***N*\]

## DESCRIPTION

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

**ppmwheel** produces a PPM image of a color wheel of the specified diameter inside a white square just large enough to hold it.

The color wheel is based on the HSV color model.  Hues are distributed\
   angularly around the circle and the values and saturations are distributed\
   radially.

You can generate three kinds of color wheel:

- •

  Hue-value: Select this with a **-huevalue** option.

  The saturation is 100% everywhere.  The value goes from zero to 100%\
     linearly, from the center of the wheel to the edge.  So the center is black.

  Hence, the image consists of all of the secondary colors based on the\
     red, green, and blue primary colors.  A secondary color is one that is\
     composed of light of at most two of the three primary colors.

- •

  Hue-saturation: Select this with a **-huesaturation** option.

  The value is 100% everywhere.  The saturation goes from zero to 100%\
     linearly, from the center of the wheel to the edge.  So the center is white.

- •

  Ppmcirc: Select this by not specifying any other wheel type option.

  The saturation is 100% everywhere.  The value is a strange function of\
     the distance from the center, increasing as the square root of the distance\
     until halfway out, then decreasing as the 8th root of the distance the rest\
     of the way.  We don't know what the point of this is, but it is what the\
     program Ppmcirc by Peter Kirchgessner in 1995 does, and was the only option\
     in **ppmwheel** from its inception in 2003 to 2019.

## ARGUMENTS

You must specify one non-option argument: the radius of the color wheel in pixels.

This is also the height and width of the output image.

## OPTIONS

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

- **-huevalue**

  This selects a hue-value color wheel.

  This option was new in Netpbm 10.86 (March 2019).

- **-huesaturation**

  This selects a hue-saturation color wheel.

  This option was new in Netpbm 10.86 (March 2019).

- **-maxval=***N*

  This selects the maxval for the image.  The default is 255.

  This option was new in Netpbm 10.86 (March 2019).

## SEE ALSO

[**ppmcie**(1)](/ppmcie/1.md) , [**ppmrainbow**(1)](/ppmrainbow/1.md) , **ppm**(1)

## HISTORY

**ppmwheel** was added to Netpbm in Release 10.14 (March 2003).

## AUTHOR

Copyright (C) 1995 by Peter Kirchgessner

## 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/ppmwheel.html**