A decoder and utility for the Flipnote Studios .ppm animation format.

This implementation is

• SIGNIFICANTLY faster,
• implemented in safe Rust (a language with strict type-checking!),
• and being actively updated.

In a 219 frame .ppm benchmark, running the command $ para ./ppms/samplememo_02.ppm gif samplememo_02.gif on a twelve-core, twenty-four-thread Ryzen 9 processor, para took an average of 368.35 milliseconds, while ppm-parser took an average of 50.4171397 seconds.

Running the command $ para ./ppms/samplememo_02.ppm 0 samplememo_02.png on a twelve-core, twenty-four-thread Ryzen 9 processor, para took an average of 1.875619 milliseconds, while ppm-parser took an average of 358.2232 milliseconds.

Rust versus Python isn't very fair, however, this benchmark shows the speed improvements that para brings to the table.

• Support for other formats (namely .kwz)
• Optimizations here and there
• Friendlier CLI
• Possible GUI

cargo +nightly install para-cli --force

Prebuilt binaries for x86_64-based Linux systems are available in the releases. If you are using a different operating system or architecture such as macOS or Windows; you'll have to build and install Para yourself!

cargo +nightly install --git https://github.com/Fuwn/para --branch main

If you are building and installing yourself, you must have Rust installed!

usage: para <in> <index option> <out>
index options:
 gif
 thumb
 dump
 integer(u16)

• $ para ./example.ppm 23 example.png will output the twenty-fourth frame of example.ppm to example.png
• $ para ./example.ppm thumb example.png will output the thumbnail of example.ppm to example.png
• $ para ./example.ppm dump example.json will output the metadata of example.ppm to example.json
• $ para ./example.ppm gif example.gif will output example.ppm to example.gif

Prebuilt binaries for the latest release may or may not be found here.

• jaames for completing PPM reverse-engineering and writing the original implementation.
• bricklife, mirai-iro, harimau_tigris, and other members of the Japanese Flipnote community who started reverse-engineering the PPM format almost as soon as the app was released.
• Midmad and WDLMaster for identifying the adpcm sound codec used.
• steven and yellows8 for the PPM documentation on DSiBrew.
• PBSDS for more PPM reverse-engineering, as well as writing hatenatools

MIT License