# Setting default colormap settings for \*components\* of an array

**URL:** https://discourse.paraview.org/t/setting-default-colormap-settings-for-components-of-an-array/12625
**Category:** ParaView Support
**Created:** [August 1, 2023, 6:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/setting-default-colormap-settings-for-components-of-an-array/12625 "2023-08-01T18:49:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 3
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![GregVernon](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/gregvernon/32/1494_2.png) [@GregVernon](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/GregVernon)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 6:49pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/setting-default-colormap-settings-for-components-of-an-array/12625/1 "2023-08-01T18:49:29Z")

</div>

I’m curious to know whether it’s possible to set default colormap values for components of an array. For example, given the `can.ex2` example file, I’d like to have a linear colormap for `Magnitude` component of `DISPL` and diverging colormaps for the `X`, `Y`, and `Z` components of `DISPL`.

However, when I apply the save button in the `Color Map Editor`:  
 ![image](https://discourse.paraview.org/uploads/default/original/2X/2/289415f2e248589b08d656070fb5cd86b1d10f8e.png)

It only seems to apply the setting to the top-level `DISPL` array in my `ParaView-UserSettings.json` file:

```json
"array_lookup_tables": 
{
    "DISPL" : 
    {
        "PVLookupTable" : 
        {
            "RGBPoints" : 
            [
                2.4611168269148833,
                0.86499999999999999,
                0.86499999999999999,
                0.86499999999999999,
                19.983999167132659,
                0.70588235294099999,
                0.015686274509800001,
                0.149019607843
            ]
        }
    },
}

```

In our specific application, we have a top-level array for `stress` and then components such as `xx`, `yy`, `zz`, `max_principal`, `von_mises`, `triaxiality`, `invariant_1st`, etc. Some of these measures are restricted to the positives and so we’d like to prescribe default colormaps per-component.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/cory.quammen/32/11193_2.png) [@cory.quammen](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/cory.quammen)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 11:14pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/setting-default-colormap-settings-for-components-of-an-array/12625/2 "2023-08-01T23:14:17Z")

</div>

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to specify different default color maps for components. In fact, it’s not possible to have different color maps for components at all - the color map is specified for the total array only.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![GregVernon](https://discourse.paraview.org/user_avatar/discourse.paraview.org/gregvernon/32/1494_2.png) [@GregVernon](https://discourse.paraview.org/u/GregVernon)
#### Post date: [August 1, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://discourse.paraview.org/t/setting-default-colormap-settings-for-components-of-an-array/12625/3 "2023-08-01T23:27:22Z")

</div>

Thanks @cory.quammen, is this something that would be a reasonable feature request?