Color map advice and resources

cory.quammen · February 12, 2021, 6:22pm

Anyone practicing data visualization that uses colors to encode data values is faced with the question: “What color map should I use?”

For some guidance on effective use of color maps and some online tools for generating color maps, please consult the web sites below:

Color Map Advice for Scientific Visualization from Ken Moreland
SciVisColor Portal a hub for research and resources related to color in scientific visualization
ColorBrewer: Color Advice for Maps
“Applying Artistic Color Theories to Visualization” by Theresa-Marie Rhyne, published in Expanding the Frontiers of Visual Analytics and Visualization, Co-Editors: J. Dill, R. A. Earnshaw, D.J. Kasik, J.A. Vince, and P.C. Wong, Publisher: Springer, pp. 263 - 283, 2012. Pre-publication version.
Peter Kovesi’s CET Perceptually Uniform Color Maps: http://peterkovesi.com/projects/colourmaps/
David Johnstone’s gradient picker
Maps for Event Horizon Telescope

Know of other helpful resources for color map advice? Please reply below.

dmreagan · February 15, 2021, 5:24pm

Theresa-Marie Rhyne also has a series on color harmony in Nightingale. You can see it on Medium here.

psandana · February 16, 2021, 9:16am

Someone once sent me this link:

Matplotlib adopted them, and I get the impression MatLab too. They are Creative Common so you can add them to VTK/ParaView projects.

The video talk is really good one. I recommend it to understand the motivation and the research.

cory.quammen · February 16, 2021, 2:29pm

Thanks, @psandana. ParaView comes with at least a few of these colormaps included:

emonson · February 17, 2021, 1:35pm

I like including articles warning against the rainbow colormap, since it’s still pretty popular in certain circles:

The misuse of colour in science communication – 2020, Fabio Crameri, Grace Shephard & Philip Heron
Rainbow color map (still) considered harmful – 2007, David Borland & Russ Taylor