Main references

A detailed introduction to the tools underlying the HCL Wizard are given in Zeileis et al. (2020). HCL-based color palettes for statistical graphics had first been introduced in Zeileis, Hornik, and Murrell (2009) with further adaptations and information in Stauffer et al. (2015). The software the tools on this website are based on are available in R (Zeileis et al. 2020) and Python (Stauffer and Zeileis 2024).

Stauffer, Reto, Georg J. Mayr, Markus Dabernig, and Achim Zeileis. 2015. “Somewhere over the Rainbow: How to Make Effective Use of Colors in Meteorological Visualizations.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 96 (2): 203–16. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-13-00155.1.

Stauffer, Reto, and Achim Zeileis. 2024. “colorspace: A Python Toolbox for Manipulating and Assessing Colors and Palettes.” Journal of Open Source Software 9 (102): 7120. https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.07120.

Zeileis, Achim, Jason C. Fisher, Kurt Hornik, Ross Ihaka, Claire D. McWhite, Paul Murrell, Reto Stauffer, and Claus O. Wilke. 2020. “colorspace: A Toolbox for Manipulating and Assessing Colors and Palettes.” Journal of Statistical Software 96 (1): 1–49. https://doi.org/10.18637/jss.v096.i01.

Zeileis, Achim, Kurt Hornik, and Paul Murrell. 2009. “Escaping RGBland: Selecting Colors for Statistical Graphics.” Computational Statistics & Data Analysis 53: 3259–70. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.csda.2008.11.033.

Further reading

BAMS. 1993. “Guidelines for Using Color to Depict Meteorological Information: IIPS Subcommittee for Color Guidelines.” Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 74 (9): 1709–13. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0477(1993)074<1709:GFUCTD>2.0.CO;2.

Brettel, H, F Viénot, and J D Mollon. 1997. “Computerized Simulation of Color Appearance for Dichromats.” Journal of the Optical Society of America. A, Optics, Image Science, and Vision 14 (10): 2647–55. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1364/JOSAA.14.002647.

Brewer, Cynthia A. 1997. “Spectral Schemes: Controversial Color Use on Maps.” Cartography and Geographic Information Systems 24 (4): 203–20. https://doi.org/10.1559/152304097782439231.

———. 1999. “Color Use Guidelines for Data Representation.” In Proceedings of the Section on Statistical Graphics, American Statistical Association, 55–60. Alexandria, VA.

Crameri, Fabio, Grace E. Shephard, and Philip J. Heron. 2020. “The Misuse of Colour in Science Communication.” Nature Communications 11 (5444): 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-19160-7.

David, Borland, and Russell M. Taylor II. 2007. “Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 27 (2): 14–17. https://doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2007.323435.

Fairchild, Mark D. 2013. Color Appearance Models. John Wiley; Sons.

Harrower, Mark A., and Cynthia A. Brewer. 2003. “ColorBrewer.org: An Online Tool for Selecting Color Schemes for Maps.” The Cartographic Journal 40: 27–37. http://ColorBrewer.org/.

Hawkins, Ed. 2014. “The End of the Rainbow.” Climate Lab Book. https://www.climate-lab-book.ac.uk/2014/end-of-the-rainbow/.

Healey, C. G. 1996. “Choosing Effective Colours for Data Visualization.” In Visualization ’96 Proceedings, 263–70.

Ihaka, Ross. 2003. “Colour for Presentation Graphics.” In Proceedings of the 3rd International Workshop on Distributed Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria, edited by Kurt Hornik, Friedrich Leisch, and Achim Zeileis. https://www.R-project.org/conferences/DSC-2003/Proceedings/Ihaka.pdf.

Kaiser, Peter K., and Robert M. Boynton. 1996. Human Color Vision. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Optical Society of America.

Knoblauch, Kenneth. 2002. “Color Vision.” In Steven’s Handbook of Experimental Psychology – Sensation and Perception, edited by Steven Yantis and Hal Pashler, 3rd ed., 1:41–75. New York: John Wiley; Sons.

Levkowitz, Haim, and Gabor T. Herman. 1992. “Color Scales for Image Data.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 12 (1): 72–80.

Light, Adam, and Patrick J. Bartlein. 2004. “The End of the Rainbow? Color Schemes for Improved Data Graphics.” Eos, Transactions American Geophysical Union 85 (40): 385–91. https://doi.org/10.1029/2004EO400002.

MacEachren, A. M. 1995. How Maps Work: Representation, Visualization, and Design. The Guilford Press.

Machado, Gustavo M., Manuel M. Oliviera, and Leandro A. F. Fernandes. 2009. “A Physiologically-Based Model for Simulation of Color Vision Deficiency.” IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics 15 (6): 1291–98. https://doi.org/10.1109/tvcg.2009.113.

Mahy, M., L. Van Eycken, and A. Oosterlinck. 1994. “Evaluation of Uniform Color Spaces Developed After the Adoption of CIELAB and CIELUV.” Color Research and Application 19 (2): 105–21. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1520-6378.1994.tb00070.x.

Moreland, Kenneth. 2009. “Diverging Color Maps for Scientific Visualization.” In Advances in Visual Computing – 5th International Symposium, ISVC 2009, 5876:92–103. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin: Springer-Verlag.

Mullen, K T. 1985. “The Contrast Sensitivity of Human Colour Vision to Red-Green and Blue-Yellow Chromatic Gratings.” The Journal of Physiology 359 (1): 381–400. https://doi.org/10.1113/jphysiol.1985.sp015591.

NOAA EMC. 2008. “NAM Vs. FV3GFS Vs. GFS Comparisons: West CONUS 2-m Dew Point Temperature.” https://www.emc.ncep.noaa.gov/.

Okabe, Masataka, and Kei Ito. 2008. “Color Universal Design (CUD): How to Make Figures and Presentations That Are Friendly to Colorblind People.” http://jfly.iam.u-tokyo.ac.jp/color/.

Rogowitz, B., and L. A. Treinish. 1998. “Data Visualization: The End of the Rainbow.” IEEE Spectrum 35 (12): 52–59. https://doi.org/10.1109/6.736450.

Silva, Samuel, Beatriz Sousa Santos, and Joaquim Madeira. 2011. “Using Color in Visualization: A Survey.” Computers and Graphics 35 (2): 320–33. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cag.2010.11.015.

Spekat, A., and F. Kreienkamp. 2007. “Somewhere over the Rainbow – Advantages and Pitfalls of Colourful Visualizations in Geosciences.” Advances in Science and Research 1 (1): 15–21. https://doi.org/10.5194/asr-1-15-2007.

Tufte, Edward. 1990. Envisioning Information. Cheshire: Graphics Press.

Viénot, F., H. Brettel, L. Ott, A. Ben M’Barek, and J. D. Mollon. 1995. “What Do Colour-Blind People See?” Nature 376 (6536): 127–28. https://doi.org/10.1038/376127a0.

Ware, C. 1988. “Color Sequences for Univariate Maps: Theory, Experiments and Principles.” IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications 8 (5): 41–49. https://doi.org/10.1109/38.7760.

Ware, Colin. 2004. “Color.” In Information Visualization: Perception for Design, 103–49. Morgan Kaufmann Publishers Inc.

Wilke, Claus O. 2019. “Color Scales.” In Fundamentals of Data Visualization. O’Reilly Media. https://serialmentor.com/dataviz/color-basics.html.

Wilkinson, Leland. 2005. The Grammar of Graphics. 2nd ed. Springer-Verlag.

Wong, Bang. 2011. “Color Blindness.” Nature Methods 8 (6): 441. https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1618.

Zeileis, Achim, David Meyer, and Kurt Hornik. 2007. “Residual-Based Shadings for Visualizing (Conditional) Independence.” Journal of Computational and Graphical Statistics 16 (3): 507–25. https://doi.org/10.1198/106186007x237856.