Credits | Overview | Plotting Styles | Commands | Terminals
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## sixelgd

Syntax:

          set terminal sixelgd
                 {{no}enhanced} {{no}truecolor} {rounded|butt}
                 {linewidth <lw>} {dashlength <dl>}
                 {tiny | small | medium | large | giant}
                 {font "<face> {,<pointsize>}"} {fontscale <scale>}
                 {size <x>,<y>} {anchor|scroll} {{no}transparent}
                 {background <rgb_color>}

The sixel output format was originally used by DEC terminals and printers. The gnuplot sixelgd driver produces a sixel output stream by converting a PNG image created internally using the gd library. The sixel output stream can be viewed in the terminal as it is created or it can be written to a file so that it can be replayed later by echoing the file to the terminal.

The sixel terminal is also useful for displaying gnuplot graphics on the linux console when no windowing system or graphics display manager is active. See linux console.

The linewidth and dashlength options are scaling factors that affect all lines drawn. They are multiplied by values requested in drawing commands.

By default the sixel output uses 16 indexed colors. The truecolor option instead creates a 24-bit RGB png image that is mapped down onto 256 colors in the output sixel image. Transparent fill styles require the truecolor option. See fillstyle.

butt instructs the driver to use a line drawing method that does not overshoot the desired end point of a line. This setting is only relevant for line widths greater than 1. The alternative is rounded, which produces somewhat more uniform curved lines but can be much slower.

The details of font selection in the gdlib terminals are complicated. For more information please see fonts.

The output plot size <x,y> is given in pixels. It defaults to 640x480, which is probably smaller than the size of your terminal window.

transparent instructs the driver to make the background color transparent, but most terminal emulators do not support this. Default is notransparent.

Gnuplot's sixelgd output has been successfully tested with terminal emulators including konsole, mlterm, mintty, and the vt340 mode of xterm (note that distributed copies of xterm may not have been configured to support sixel graphics). Sixel support in the KDE konsole terminal was added in version 22.04.0.

By default (anchor) each plot is drawn by overwriting the area at the top left of the window. This allows redrawing to create an in-place animation and pseudo-mousing using the arrow keys during pause mouse. The scroll option instead starts each plot at the current cursor position so that successive plots scroll with any intervening text.