Skip to content

Navigation Menu

Sign in
Appearance settings

Search code, repositories, users, issues, pull requests...

Provide feedback

We read every piece of feedback, and take your input very seriously.

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly
Appearance settings

Colormap choice guidelines in documentation - based on talk at SciPy 2014 #3301

New issue

Have a question about this project? Sign up for a free GitHub account to open an issue and contact its maintainers and the community.

Sign up for GitHub

By clicking “Sign up for GitHub”, you agree to our terms of service and privacy statement. We’ll occasionally send you account related emails.

Already on GitHub? Sign in to your account

Merged
merged 6 commits into from
Jul 29, 2014
Merged

Colormap choice guidelines in documentation - based on talk at SciPy 2014 #3301

Changes from 1 commit
Commits
Show all changes
6 commits
Select commit Hold shift + click to select a range
cb9c28c
working on guide for choosing colormaps. Have overview section and st…
kthyng Jul 12, 2014
8d15dec
added colormaps guide to beginner guide
kthyng Jul 12, 2014
2971463
some more text to colormaps
kthyng Jul 18, 2014
1354f36
added a bunch of stuff to my colormap info
kthyng Jul 24, 2014
11243ff
finished up draft
kthyng Jul 24, 2014
52d585a
now with scripts actually included!
kthyng Jul 28, 2014
File filter

Filter by extension

Filter by extension
Conversations
Failed to load comments.
Loading
Jump to
Jump to file
Failed to load files.
Loading
Diff view
Diff view
Prev Previous commit
Next Next commit
finished up draft
  • Loading branch information
@kthyng
kthyng committed Jul 24, 2014
commit 11243ff76062a192dc6b2a19268207c54d878406
293 changes: 12 additions & 281 deletions 293 doc/users/colormaps.rst
View file
Open in desktop
Original file line number Diff line number Diff line change
Expand Up @@ -19,11 +19,13 @@ For many applications, a perceptual colormap is the best choice --- one in which

Color can be represented in 3D space in various ways. One way to represent color is using CIELAB. In CIELAB, color space is represented by lightness, :math:`L^*`; red-green, :math:`a^*`; and yellow-blue, :math:`b^*`. The lightness parameter :math:`L^*` can then be used to learn more about how the matplotlib colormaps will be perceived by viewers.

An excellent starting resource for learning about human perception of colormaps is from [IBM]_.


Classes of colormaps
====================

Colormaps are often split into several categories based on function (see, *e.g.*, [Moreland]_):
Colormaps are often split into several categories based on their function (see, *e.g.*, [Moreland]_):

1. Sequential: change in lightness and often saturation of color incrementally, often using a single hue; should be used for representing information that has ordering.
2. Diverging: change in lightness and possibly saturation of two different colors that meet in the middle at an unsaturated color; should be used when the information being plotted has a critical middle value, such as topography or when the data deviates around zero.
Expand Down Expand Up @@ -78,15 +80,19 @@ Grayscale conversion

Conversion to grayscale is important to pay attention to for printing publications that have color plots. If this is not paid attention to ahead of time, your readers may end up with indecipherable plots because the grayscale changes unpredictably through the colormap.

Conversion to grayscale is done in many different ways [bw]_. Some of the better ones use a linear combination of the rgb values of a pixel, but weighted according to how we perceive color intensity. A nonlinear method of conversion to grayscale is to use the :math:`L^*` values of the pixels. In general, similar principles apply for this question as they do for presenting one's information perceptually; that is, if a colormap is chosen that has monotonically increasing in :math:`L^*` values, it will print in a reasonable manner to grayscale.
Conversion to grayscale is done in many different ways [bw]_. Some of the better ones use a linear combination of the rgb values of a pixel, but weighted according to how we perceive color intensity. A nonlinear method of conversion to grayscale is to use the :math:`L^*` values of the pixels. In general, similar principles apply for this question as they do for presenting one's information perceptually; that is, if a colormap is chosen that has monotonically increasing in :math:`L^*` values, it will print in a reasonable manner to grayscale.

With this in mind, we see that the Sequential colormaps have reasonable representations in grayscale. Some of the Sequential2 colormaps have decent enough grayscale representations, though some (autumn, spring, summer, winter) have very little grayscale change. If a colormap like this was used in a plot and then the plot was printed to grayscale, a lot of the information may map to the same gray values. The Diverging colormaps mostly vary from darker gray on the outer edges to white in the middle. Some (PuOr and seismic) have noticably darker gray on one side than the other and therefore are not very symmetric. coolwarm has little range of gray scale and would print to a more uniform plot, losing a lot of detail. Note that overlaid, labeled contours could help differentiate between one side of the colormap vs. the other since color cannot be used once a plot is printed to grayscale. Many of the Qualitative and Miscellaneous colormaps, such as Accent, hsv, and jet, change from darker to lighter and back to darker gray throughout the colormap. This would make it impossible for a viewer to interpret the information in a plot once it is printed in grayscale.

.. plot:: users/plotting/colormaps/grayscale.py


Color vision deficiencies
=========================

MORE
There is a lot of information available about color blindness available (*e.g.*, [colorblindness]_). Additionally, there are tools available to convert images to how they look for different types of color vision deficiencies (*e.g.*, [asp]_).

The most common form of color vision deficiency involves differentiating between red and green. Thus, avoiding colormaps with both red and green will avoid many problems in general.


References
Expand All @@ -100,282 +106,7 @@ References
.. [mycarta_lablinear] http://mycarta.wordpress.com/2012/12/06/the-rainbow-is-deadlong-live-the-rainbow-part-5-cie-lab-linear-l-rainbow/
.. [mycarta_cubelaw] http://mycarta.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/perceptual-rainbow-palette-the-method/
.. [bw] http://www.tannerhelland.com/3643/grayscale-image-algorithm-vb6/
IBM paper
More

.. :mod:`matplotlib.pyplot` is a collection of command style functions
.. that make matplotlib work like MATLAB.
.. Each ``pyplot`` function makes
.. some change to a figure: eg, create a figure, create a plotting area
.. in a figure, plot some lines in a plotting area, decorate the plot
.. with labels, etc.... :mod:`matplotlib.pyplot` is stateful, in that it
.. keeps track of the current figure and plotting area, and the plotting
.. functions are directed to the current axes

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_simple.py
.. :include-source:

.. You may be wondering why the x-axis ranges from 0-3 and the y-axis
.. from 1-4. If you provide a single list or array to the
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.plot` command, matplotlib assumes it is a
.. sequence of y values, and automatically generates the x values for
.. you. Since python ranges start with 0, the default x vector has the
.. same length as y but starts with 0. Hence the x data are
.. ``[0,1,2,3]``.

.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.plot` is a versatile command, and will take
.. an arbitrary number of arguments. For example, to plot x versus y,
.. you can issue the command::

.. plt.plot([1,2,3,4], [1,4,9,16])

.. For every x, y pair of arguments, there is an optional third argument
.. which is the format string that indicates the color and line type of
.. the plot. The letters and symbols of the format string are from
.. MATLAB, and you concatenate a color string with a line style string.
.. The default format string is 'b-', which is a solid blue line. For
.. example, to plot the above with red circles, you would issue

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_formatstr.py
.. :include-source:

.. See the :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.plot` documentation for a complete
.. list of line styles and format strings. The
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.axis` command in the example above takes a
.. list of ``[xmin, xmax, ymin, ymax]`` and specifies the viewport of the
.. axes.

.. If matplotlib were limited to working with lists, it would be fairly
.. useless for numeric processing. Generally, you will use `numpy
.. <http://numpy.scipy.org>`_ arrays. In fact, all sequences are
.. converted to numpy arrays internally. The example below illustrates a
.. plotting several lines with different format styles in one command
.. using arrays.

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_three.py
.. :include-source:

.. .. _controlling-line-properties:

.. Controlling line properties
.. ===========================

.. Lines have many attributes that you can set: linewidth, dash style,
.. antialiased, etc; see :class:`matplotlib.lines.Line2D`. There are
.. several ways to set line properties

.. * Use keyword args::

.. plt.plot(x, y, linewidth=2.0)


.. * Use the setter methods of the ``Line2D`` instance. ``plot`` returns a list
.. of lines; eg ``line1, line2 = plot(x1,y1,x2,y2)``. Below I have only
.. one line so it is a list of length 1. I use tuple unpacking in the
.. ``line, = plot(x, y, 'o')`` to get the first element of the list::

.. line, = plt.plot(x, y, '-')
.. line.set_antialiased(False) # turn off antialising

.. * Use the :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.setp` command. The example below
.. uses a MATLAB-style command to set multiple properties
.. on a list of lines. ``setp`` works transparently with a list of objects
.. or a single object. You can either use python keyword arguments or
.. MATLAB-style string/value pairs::

.. lines = plt.plot(x1, y1, x2, y2)
.. # use keyword args
.. plt.setp(lines, color='r', linewidth=2.0)
.. # or MATLAB style string value pairs
.. plt.setp(lines, 'color', 'r', 'linewidth', 2.0)


.. Here are the available :class:`~matplotlib.lines.Line2D` properties.

.. ====================== ==================================================
.. Property Value Type
.. ====================== ==================================================
.. alpha float
.. animated [True | False]
.. antialiased or aa [True | False]
.. clip_box a matplotlib.transform.Bbox instance
.. clip_on [True | False]
.. clip_path a Path instance and a Transform instance, a Patch
.. color or c any matplotlib color
.. contains the hit testing function
.. dash_capstyle [``'butt'`` | ``'round'`` | ``'projecting'``]
.. dash_joinstyle [``'miter'`` | ``'round'`` | ``'bevel'``]
.. dashes sequence of on/off ink in points
.. data (np.array xdata, np.array ydata)
.. figure a matplotlib.figure.Figure instance
.. label any string
.. linestyle or ls [ ``'-'`` | ``'--'`` | ``'-.'`` | ``':'`` | ``'steps'`` | ...]
.. linewidth or lw float value in points
.. lod [True | False]
.. marker [ ``'+'`` | ``','`` | ``'.'`` | ``'1'`` | ``'2'`` | ``'3'`` | ``'4'`` ]
.. markeredgecolor or mec any matplotlib color
.. markeredgewidth or mew float value in points
.. markerfacecolor or mfc any matplotlib color
.. markersize or ms float
.. markevery [ None | integer | (startind, stride) ]
.. picker used in interactive line selection
.. pickradius the line pick selection radius
.. solid_capstyle [``'butt'`` | ``'round'`` | ``'projecting'``]
.. solid_joinstyle [``'miter'`` | ``'round'`` | ``'bevel'``]
.. transform a matplotlib.transforms.Transform instance
.. visible [True | False]
.. xdata np.array
.. ydata np.array
.. zorder any number
.. ====================== ==================================================

.. To get a list of settable line properties, call the
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.setp` function with a line or lines
.. as argument

.. .. sourcecode:: ipython

.. In [69]: lines = plt.plot([1,2,3])

.. In [70]: plt.setp(lines)
.. alpha: float
.. animated: [True | False]
.. antialiased or aa: [True | False]
.. ...snip

.. .. _multiple-figs-axes:

.. Working with multiple figures and axes
.. ======================================


.. MATLAB, and :mod:`~matplotlib.pyplot`, have the concept of the current
.. figure and the current axes. All plotting commands apply to the
.. current axes. The function :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.gca` returns the
.. current axes (a :class:`matplotlib.axes.Axes` instance), and
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.gcf` returns the current figure
.. (:class:`matplotlib.figure.Figure` instance). Normally, you don't have
.. to worry about this, because it is all taken care of behind the
.. scenes. Below is a script to create two subplots.

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_two_subplots.py
.. :include-source:

.. The :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.figure` command here is optional because
.. ``figure(1)`` will be created by default, just as a ``subplot(111)``
.. will be created by default if you don't manually specify an axes. The
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.subplot` command specifies ``numrows,
.. numcols, fignum`` where ``fignum`` ranges from 1 to
.. ``numrows*numcols``. The commas in the ``subplot`` command are
.. optional if ``numrows*numcols<10``. So ``subplot(211)`` is identical
.. to ``subplot(2,1,1)``. You can create an arbitrary number of subplots
.. and axes. If you want to place an axes manually, ie, not on a
.. rectangular grid, use the :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.axes` command,
.. which allows you to specify the location as ``axes([left, bottom,
.. width, height])`` where all values are in fractional (0 to 1)
.. coordinates. See :ref:`pylab_examples-axes_demo` for an example of
.. placing axes manually and :ref:`pylab_examples-subplots_demo` for an
.. example with lots-o-subplots.


.. You can create multiple figures by using multiple
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.figure` calls with an increasing figure
.. number. Of course, each figure can contain as many axes and subplots
.. as your heart desires::

.. import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
.. plt.figure(1) # the first figure
.. plt.subplot(211) # the first subplot in the first figure
.. plt.plot([1,2,3])
.. plt.subplot(212) # the second subplot in the first figure
.. plt.plot([4,5,6])


.. plt.figure(2) # a second figure
.. plt.plot([4,5,6]) # creates a subplot(111) by default

.. plt.figure(1) # figure 1 current; subplot(212) still current
.. plt.subplot(211) # make subplot(211) in figure1 current
.. plt.title('Easy as 1,2,3') # subplot 211 title

.. You can clear the current figure with :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.clf`
.. and the current axes with :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.cla`. If you find
.. this statefulness, annoying, don't despair, this is just a thin
.. stateful wrapper around an object oriented API, which you can use
.. instead (see :ref:`artist-tutorial`)

.. If you are making a long sequence of figures, you need to be aware of one
.. more thing: the memory required for a figure is not completely
.. released until the figure is explicitly closed with
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.close`. Deleting all references to the
.. figure, and/or using the window manager to kill the window in which
.. the figure appears on the screen, is not enough, because pyplot
.. maintains internal references until :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.close`
.. is called.

.. .. _working-with-text:

.. Working with text
.. =================

.. The :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.text` command can be used to add text in
.. an arbitrary location, and the :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.xlabel`,
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.ylabel` and :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.title`
.. are used to add text in the indicated locations (see :ref:`text-intro`
.. for a more detailed example)

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_text.py
.. :include-source:


.. All of the :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.text` commands return an
.. :class:`matplotlib.text.Text` instance. Just as with with lines
.. above, you can customize the properties by passing keyword arguments
.. into the text functions or using :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.setp`::

.. t = plt.xlabel('my data', fontsize=14, color='red')

.. These properties are covered in more detail in :ref:`text-properties`.


.. Using mathematical expressions in text
.. --------------------------------------

.. matplotlib accepts TeX equation expressions in any text expression.
.. For example to write the expression :math:`\sigma_i=15` in the title,
.. you can write a TeX expression surrounded by dollar signs::

.. plt.title(r'$\sigma_i=15$')

.. The ``r`` preceding the title string is important -- it signifies
.. that the string is a *raw* string and not to treat backslashes as
.. python escapes. matplotlib has a built-in TeX expression parser and
.. layout engine, and ships its own math fonts -- for details see
.. :ref:`mathtext-tutorial`. Thus you can use mathematical text across platforms
.. without requiring a TeX installation. For those who have LaTeX and
.. dvipng installed, you can also use LaTeX to format your text and
.. incorporate the output directly into your display figures or saved
.. postscript -- see :ref:`usetex-tutorial`.


.. Annotating text
.. ---------------

.. The uses of the basic :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.text` command above
.. place text at an arbitrary position on the Axes. A common use case of
.. text is to annotate some feature of the plot, and the
.. :func:`~matplotlib.pyplot.annotate` method provides helper
.. functionality to make annotations easy. In an annotation, there are
.. two points to consider: the location being annotated represented by
.. the argument ``xy`` and the location of the text ``xytext``. Both of
.. these arguments are ``(x,y)`` tuples.

.. .. plot:: pyplots/pyplot_annotate.py
.. :include-source:
.. [colorblindness] http://aspnetresources.com/tools/colorBlindness
.. [asp] http://aspnetresources.com/tools/colorBlindness
.. [IBM] http://www.research.ibm.com/people/l/lloydt/color/color.HTM

.. In this basic example, both the ``xy`` (arrow tip) and ``xytext``
.. locations (text location) are in data coordinates. There are a
.. variety of other coordinate systems one can choose -- see
.. :ref:`annotations-tutorial` and :ref:`plotting-guide-annotation` for
.. details. More examples can be found in
.. :ref:`pylab_examples-annotation_demo`.
Morty Proxy This is a proxified and sanitized view of the page, visit original site.