[yt-dev] Default colormap

Thu Jan 7 09:43:23 PST 2016

I am in favor of retraining a unique yt colormap but making it work better
than algae for the reasons already mentioned.  I'd like to point out that
about a year ago I added the capacity in yt to create custom colormaps that
could easily be used for this purpose.

http://yt-project.org/docs/dev/visualizing/colormaps/index.html?highlight=colormaps#making-and-viewing-custom-colormaps

Cameron

On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 1:48 PM, Levy, Stuart A <salevy at illinois.edu> wrote:

> There was a fair bit of discussion about colormaps - terrible, useful,
> beautiful - at IEEE Vis last October.   The viridis colormap was a featured
> one.   So was the traditional rainbow, which lots of info-vis and
> perceptual people piled on to criticize.
>
> Among design criteria for a continuous-valued colormap is whether it's
> "sequential" (like the typical yt colormap, or viridis) or "diverging".
> You'd want a diverging colormap to show signed deviations from a norm -
> where the eye should be caught by places where a value is either much less
> than, or much more than, something in the middle.   Is it worth offering a
> typical divergent colormap, as well as a new typical sequential one, in yt?
>
> Note that among the Stefan van der Walt & Nathaniel Smith writeup (
> http://bids.github.io/colormap/ ) on their development of better cmaps,
> they use Nathan Goldbaum's galaxy evolution as a test case for six
> (sequential) examples! =>
> http://vorpus.org/~njs/goldbaum-galaxies-all-colormaps.mkv
>
> A neat web site with sample colormaps - aimed at mapping discrete values
> on geographic maps, so not directly applicable but cool - is this, by
> Cynthia Brewer and Mark Harrower at PSU:
>     http://colorbrewer2.org/
> It has a library of predesigned cmaps, and lets you sift them by being
> colorblind-safe, photocopy safe, etc.
> ------------------------------
> *From:* yt-dev [yt-dev-bounces at lists.spacepope.org] on behalf of B.W.
> Keller [kellerbw at mcmaster.ca]
> *Sent:* Wednesday, January 06, 2016 12:13
> *To:* yt-dev at lists.spacepope.org
> *Subject:* Re: [yt-dev] Default colormap
>
> There is a really excellent paper on designing color maps called "Color
> Sequences for Univariate Maps: Theory, Experiments, and Principles" that
> you can get here:
> http://ccom.unh.edu/sites/default/files/publications/Ware_1988_CGA_Color_sequences_univariate_maps.pdf
> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__ccom.unh.edu_sites_default_files_publications_Ware-5F1988-5FCGA-5FColor-5Fsequences-5Funivariate-5Fmaps.pdf&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=5Yg0N-A3hbVCKwltZjUQBJOQZK6OFbo4G3VWKT9uVZ0&e=>
>
> If we design a new colormap, this would be a good reference along with
> those scipy resources.  I personally would love to have an accessible,
> yt-custom colormap.
>
> On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 11:50 AM, Erik Schnetter <schnetter at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> I think there are several colourmaps that were created when Viridis
>> was invented. I personally like Inferno.
>>
>> -erik
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 11:34 AM, Nathan Goldbaum <nathan12343 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > I would also be for coming up with our own colormap. That said, I think
>> > simply modifying algae won't be enough, since it is too perceptually
>> > nonlinear.
>> >
>> > On Wed, Jan 6, 2016 at 10:32 AM, John ZuHone <jzuhone at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> I would go for modifying algae.
>> >>
>> >> > On Jan 6, 2016, at 11:30 AM, Matthew Turk <matthewturk at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> >
>> >> > Hi folks,
>> >> >
>> >> > For a long time we've used "algae," which was designed by Britton
>> >> > about eight years ago, as the default colormap.  This has been really
>> >> > nice for "branding" yt -- if you see an algae plot, it's probably
>> (not
>> >> > definitely) made with yt.  But it's also not accessible from a
>> >> > colorblindness perspective.  Stefan van der Walt has been giving some
>> >> > really great talks lately about building a better colormap for
>> >> > matplotlib (e.g., https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3DxAoljeRJ3lU&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=fpeIMGnkAI5_PfL699BNCowLgIQr4xXy-oK90Bub2MU&e=>
>> ) which
>> >> > culminated in viridis, which is shipping in recent versions of
>> >> > matplotlib and will become the default.
>> >> >
>> >> > In support of this, he built a tool called viscm which can generate
>> >> > reduced versions of colormaps to show what they would be like with
>> >> > varying degrees of insensitivity to color.  I've generated outputs
>> >> > from viscm of three of the custom colormaps we ship with yt:
>> >> >
>> >> > Algae: https://images.hub.yt/u/fido/m/d275d5e1-png/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__images.hub.yt_u_fido_m_d275d5e1-2Dpng_&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=5En_z8QNwijy3Ou9Ah6_Fzfdp8gSXcs4bphf-SZBGuE&e=>
>> >> > Cubehelix: https://images.hub.yt/u/fido/m/8e698928-png/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__images.hub.yt_u_fido_m_8e698928-2Dpng_&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=y4k79vB300hkxSOvNBPaMYSeMSdgWY3yJP2TJ1e61YA&e=>
>> (I believe
>> >> > this is now also shipped with MPL)
>> >> > Kamae: https://images.hub.yt/u/fido/m/e0e40efa-png/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__images.hub.yt_u_fido_m_e0e40efa-2Dpng_&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=xvnX_JDGJFjLaPam1gf5BwfAS4lF7qjJ5CLmd6ExJzQ&e=>
>> >> >
>> >> > I love algae, but it's not the best from an accessibility
>> perspective.
>> >> >
>> >> > I'd like to propose that we use a new default colormap.  If we do
>> >> > this, I see two options:
>> >> >
>> >> > * Retain a "branding" by developing a new one either by using the
>> >> > techniques used by matplotlib (or one of the maps they opted not to
>> >> > use) or by modifying algae to be more accessible; looking at the
>> >> > response functions, I suspect it would be reasonably possible to
>> >> > modify it.  (Modifying algae is my preference.)
>> >> > * Use viridis (which we may then have to ship if we have older
>> >> > versions of matplotlib to support)
>> >> >
>> >> > -Matt
>> >> > _______________________________________________
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>> >>
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>> >
>> >
>> >
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>> >
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Erik Schnetter <schnetter at gmail.com>
>> http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/personal/eschnetter/
>> <https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.perimeterinstitute.ca_personal_eschnetter_&d=BQMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=hgcBC3x6dKFoTrmFmMYYbKNfiHZlGLKliIidd1LwmHI&m=FMHeB3pNOAeqOzZIyPgy5-uxuN2ghGC9-8XQuthPiIU&s=7jImD2ypg2lTI_MTSODmVdgQnwBMJvGou2W8_PSAADg&e=>
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>>
>
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-- 
Cameron Hummels
NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
Department of Astronomy
California Institute of Technology
http://chummels.org
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