Is there a command line tool for image manipulation?

Question

I'm searching for a tool for command line image manipulation. I want something similar to pinpoint presentation tool where I edit a file and can directly see the results on another window.

I can get a similar result with tikz and latex but I need to compile anything any time I change something and I am hoping for something more efficient.

Solution 1

I haven't used it myself but the gimp has scripting tools available which are cli based, script-Fu I think it's called. It may be more for filter application rather than image generation unfortunately.

http://docs.gimp.org/en/gimp-using-script-fu-tutorial.html Is a script-Fu guide

http://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Basic_Batch/ Is about using gimp from the command line

Solution 2

ImageMagick provides a super-nice set of command-line tools for image manipulation. Check it out at http://www.imagemagick.org/.

Comments

[Admin]

I don't understand your question: “command line” and “see the results on another window” seem contradictory. Are you trying to automate something, or to change an image interactively?

[Admin]

@Gilles I think he wants to have CLI control over the image manipulation itself, and see the results in real time in another window without having to save the image first.

[Admin]

@chris-down, that'd be cool by the way, IMHO.

[Admin]

Imagemagick is probably not what you want, but I thought I'd mention it. And you can generally hit refresh for image display, so I don't think real time updating is a big deal myself.

[Admin]

@ChrisDown: You are right. do you know anything similar?

[Yotam]

TikZ is too clumsy for my needs. Generating this figure (I have contributed it) texample.net/tikz/examples/membrane-surface is generated in about two seconds on my machine and toying with parameters is frustrating.