A recent article in the earth science literature cited below and available at http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/EOS/ points out that rainbow color schemes and mixtures of green and yellow can be troublesome for people with color-deficient vision. The authors propose alternative schemes that can be viewed and downloaded in RGB, HSV, CMYK, and RGB256 formats from http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/color_scales.htm. I have translated their RGB definitions into the hex color names given below. Ironically, their article appeared on the same page of one that used a rainbow color pattern to show climate patterns. I'm not color-blind but I still had trouble figuring out which end of the scale some of the colors belonged to. Light A. and P.J. Bartlein, 2004. "The end of the rainbow? Color schemes for improved data graphics," EOS Transactions of the American Geophysical Union 85(40):385. BrowntoBlue.10 <- c("#663000", "#996136", "#CC9B7A", "#D9AF98", "#F2DACE", "#CCFDFF", "#99F8FF", "#66F0FF", "#33E4FF", "#00AACC") BrowntoBlue.12 <- c("#331A00", "#663000", "#996136", "#CC9B7A", "#D9AF98", "#F2DACE", "#CCFDFF", "#99F8FF", "#66F0FF", "#33E4FF", "#00AACC", "#007A99") BluetoDarkOrange.12 <- c("#1F8F99", "#52C4CC", "#99FAFF", "#B2FCFF", "#CCFEFF", "#E6FFFF", "#FFE6CC", "#FFCA99", "#FFAD66", "#FF8F33", "#CC5800", "#994000") BluetoDarkOrange.18 <- c("#006666", "#009999", "#00CCCC", "#00FFFF", "#33FFFF", "#66FFFF", "#99FFFF", "#B2FFFF", "#CCFFFF", "#E6FFFF", "#FFE6CC", "#FFCA99", "#FFAD66", "#FF8F33", "#FF6E00", "#CC5500", "#993D00", "#662700") DarkRedtoBlue.12 <- c("#2A0BD9", "#264EFF", "#40A1FF", "#73DAFF", "#ABF8FF", "#E0FFFF", "#FFFFBF", "#FFE099", "#FFAD73", "#F76E5E", "#D92632", "#A60021") DarkRedtoBlue.18 <- c("#2400D9", "#191DF7", "#2957FF", "#3D87FF", "#57B0FF", "#75D3FF", "#99EBFF", "#BDF9FF", "#EBFFFF", "#FFFFEB", "#FFF2BD", "#FFD699", "#FFAC75", "#FF7857", "#FF3D3D", "#F72836", "#D91630", "#A60021") BluetoGreen.14 <- c("#0000FF", "#3333FF", "#6666FF", "#9999FF", "#B2B2FF", "#CCCCFF", "#E6E6FF", "#E6FFE6", "#CCFFCC", "#B2FFB2", "#99FF99", "#66FF66", "#33FF33", "#00FF00") BluetoGray.8 <- c("#0099CC", "#66E6FF", "#99FFFF", "#CCFFFF", "#E6E6E6", "#999999", "#666666", "#333333") BluetoOrangeRed.14 <- c("#085AFF", "#3377FF", "#5991FF", "#8CB2FF", "#BFD4FF", "#E6EEFF", "#F7FAFF", "#FFFFCC", "#FFFF99", "#FFFF00", "#FFCC00", "#FF9900", "#FF6600", "#FF0000") BluetoOrange.10 <- c("#0055FF", "#3399FF", "#66CCFF", "#99EEFF", "#CCFFFF", "#FFFFCC", "#FFEE99", "#FFCC66", "#FF9933", "#FF5500") BluetoOrange.12 <- c("#002BFF", "#1A66FF", "#3399FF", "#66CCFF", "#99EEFF", "#CCFFFF", "#FFFFCC", "#FFEE99", "#FFCC66", "#FF9933", "#FF661A", "#FF2B00") BluetoOrange.8 <- c("#0080FF", "#4CC4FF", "#99EEFF", "#CCFFFF", "#FFFFCC", "#FFEE99", "#FFC44C", "#FF8000") LightBluetoDarkBlue.10 <- c("#E6FFFF", "#CCFBFF", "#B2F2FF", "#99E6FF", "#80D4FF", "#66BFFF", "#4CA6FF", "#3388FF", "#1A66FF", "#0040FF") LightBluetoDarkBlue.7 <- c("#FFFFFF", "#CCFDFF", "#99F8FF", "#66F0FF", "#33E4FF", "#00AACC", "#007A99") Categorical.12 <- c("#FFBF80", "#FF8000", "#FFFF99", "#FFFF33", "#B2FF8C", "#33FF00", "#A6EDFF", "#1AB2FF", "#CCBFFF", "#664CFF", "#FF99BF", "#E61A33") GreentoMagenta.16 <- c("#005100", "#008600", "#00BC00", "#00F100", "#51FF51", "#86FF86", "#BCFFBC", "#FFFFFF", "#FFF1FF", "#FFBCFF", "#FF86FF", "#FF51FF", "#F100F1", "#BC00BC", "#860086", "#510051") SteppedSequential.5 <- c("#990F0F", "#B22D2D", "#CC5252", "#E67E7E", "#FFB2B2", "#99700F", "#B28B2D", "#CCA852", "#E6C77E", "#FFE8B2", "#1F990F", "#3CB22D", "#60CC52", "#8AE67E", "#BCFFB2", "#710F99", "#8B2DB2", "#A852CC", "#C77EE6", "#E9B2FF", "#990F20", "#B22D3C", "#CC5260", "#E67E8A", "#FFB2BC") Scott Waichler Pacific Northwest National Laboratory scott.waichler at pnl.gov
Color schemes that work for people with color-deficient vision
3 messages · Scott Waichler, Duncan Murdoch, Thomas Lumley
On Tue, 02 Nov 2004 13:04:48 -0800, Scott Waichler
<scott.waichler at pnl.gov> wrote:
A recent article in the earth science literature cited below and available at http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/EOS/ points out that rainbow color schemes and mixtures of green and yellow can be troublesome for people with color-deficient vision. The authors propose alternative schemes that can be viewed and downloaded in RGB, HSV, CMYK, and RGB256 formats from http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/color_scales.htm. I have translated their RGB definitions into the hex color names given below.
Thomas Lumley has just written a couple of functions that make experimentation with scales like this a lot easier. They're currently in R-devel, and will appear in R 2.1.0 next spring. If you want to play with them before that, you can get the source and the docs from https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/library/graphics/R/colorRamp.R and https://svn.r-project.org/R/trunk/src/library/graphics/man/colorRamp.Rd Duncan Murdoch
On Tue, 2 Nov 2004, Scott Waichler wrote:
A recent article in the earth science literature cited below and available at http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/EOS/ points out that rainbow color schemes and mixtures of green and yellow can be troublesome for people with color-deficient vision. The authors propose alternative schemes that can be viewed and downloaded in RGB, HSV, CMYK, and RGB256 formats from http://geography.uoregon.edu/datagraphics/color_scales.htm. I have translated their RGB definitions into the hex color names given below.
I'll add these to the dichromat package if they don't go in anywhere else. Also note that the ColorBrewer colors scheme at www.colorbrewer.org have comments on which ones work for color-deficient viewers and also for other problem settings (eg cheap inkjet printers, digital projects, B&W photocopies). These color schemes, though not the metadata, are in the RColorBrewer package. -thomas