Convert CUT Images to XPM Online

Dynapik offers a free online tool to change image types - no need to download anything. It's quick and easy to use. You can change your CUT images to XPM format. This tool works for both professionals and casual users. Convert your images to XPM in seconds.

Possible Conversions

About CUT Format

Dr. Halo CUT

A legacy device-independent bitmap format from the Dr. Halo paint program.

Overview

The CUT format is a legacy raster image format associated with Dr. Halo, a popular paint program for MS-DOS in the 1980s. It was designed to be a device-independent format for storing images. A unique characteristic of the CUT format is that it typically does not store its own color palette. Instead, the palette is stored in a separate file with the extension .PAL. Without this companion file, a CUT image is often rendered in grayscale.

Technical Details

A CUT file begins with a simple 6-byte header specifying the width and height. The image data follows immediately and is compressed using Run-Length Encoding (RLE) to save disk space, which was critical in the floppy disk era. Because the file only contains indices (0-255) for the pixels, it relies entirely on the external .PAL file to map those indices to actual Red, Green, and Blue colors.

History

Dr. Halo was one of the first serious competitors to PC Paintbrush (PCX). The CUT format was widely used in the DOS era for creating graphics, screenshots, and simple illustrations. As Windows became dominant and formats like BMP and GIF standardized color storage, CUT fell into obscurity.

Common Use Cases

  • Legacy Graphics Recovery: Opening old drawings made in Dr. Halo.
  • Palette Swapping: Changing the look of an image by loading a different .PAL file.

Advantages

  • Simple Compression
  • Palette Independence

Limitations

  • Two-File System
  • Obsolete

Technical Specifications

Extension: .cutMIME: image/x-halo-cutMax Color: 8-bit (256 colors)Category: legacy

About XPM Format

X PixMap

Color icons written as text.

Overview

XPM (X PixMap) is the usage successor to XBM. It allows for color images (and transparency) to be stored as C source code arrays. It was the standard format for icons in the Common Desktop Environment (CDE) and many Unix window managers.

Technical Details

An XPM file is valid C code defining a character array: `static char * icon[] = { ... }`. The data defines a color palette (mapping characters like '.' or '#' to hex colors) and then draws the image using those characters. This makes it human-readable and editable in a text editor.

History

Developed by Groupe Bull in 1989 to bring color support to X11 icons.

Common Use Cases

  • Application Icons: Embedding a logo into a compiled C++ binary.

Advantages

  • Embeddable
  • Editable

Limitations

  • Size
  • Web Support

Technical Specifications

Extension: .xpmMIME: image/x-xpixmapMax Color: Variable (Indexed)Category: specialized

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it possible to convert CUT to XPM without losing size online?
Definitely! You can configure quality options for the conversion so that the resulting image is as close to the original as possible.
How long does it take to convert CUT image to XPM file?
The conversion between CUT and XPM is instant without delay.

Why choose Dynapik?

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