Color Palette — colour • khroma

Provides qualitative, diverging and sequential color schemes.

colour(palette, reverse = FALSE, names = TRUE, lang = "en", force = FALSE, ...)

color(palette, reverse = FALSE, names = TRUE, lang = "en", force = FALSE, ...)

Arguments

palette	A `character` string giving the name of the palette to be used (see below).
reverse	A `logical` scalar: should the resulting vector of colors should be reversed?
names	A `logical` scalar: should the names of the colors should be kept in the resulting vector?
lang	A `character` string specifying the language for the color names. It must be one of "`en`" (english, the default) or "`fr`" (french).
force	A `logical` scalar. If `TRUE`, forces the color scheme to be interpolated. It should not be used routinely with qualitative color schemes, as they are designed to be used as is to remain colorblind-safe.
...	Further arguments passed to colorRampPalette.

Value

A palette function with the following attributes, that when called with a single integer argument (the number of levels) returns a (named) vector of colors.

palette: A character string giving the name of the color scheme.
type: A character string giving the corresponding data type. One of "qualitative", "diverging" or "sequential".
interpolate: A logical scalar: can the color palette be interpolated?
missing: A character string giving the the hexadecimal representation of the color that should be used for NA values.
max: An integer giving the maximum number of color values. Only relevant for non-interpolated color schemes.

For colour schemes that can be interpolated (diverging and sequential data), the colour range can be limited with an additional argument. range allows to remove a fraction of the colour domain (before being interpolated; see examples).

Paul Tol's Color Schemes

The following palettes are available. The maximum number of supported colors is in brackets, this value is only relevant for the qualitative color schemes (divergent and sequential schemes are linearly interpolated).

Qualitative data: bright (7), contrast (3), vibrant (7), muted (9), pale (6), dark (6), light (9).
Diverging data: sunset (11), BuRd (9), PRGn (9).
Sequential data: YlOrBr (9), iridescent (23), discrete rainbow (23), smooth rainbow (34).

Qualitative color schemes

According to Paul Tol's technical note, the bright, contrast, vibrant and muted color schemes are colorblind safe.

The light color scheme is reasonably distinct for both normal or colorblind vision and is intended to fill labeled cells.

The pale and dark schemes are not very distinct in either normal or colorblind vision and should be used as a text background or to highlight a cell in a table.

Refer to the original document for details about the recommended uses (see references).

Rainbow color scheme

As a general rule, ordered data should not be represented using a rainbow scheme. There are three main arguments against such use (Tol 2018):

The spectral order of visible light carries no inherent magnitude message.
Some bands of almost constant hue with sharp transitions between them, can be perceived as jumps in the data.
Colour-blind people have difficulty distinguishing some colours of the rainbow.

If such use cannot be avoided, Paul Tol's technical note provides two colour schemes that are reasonably clear in colour-blind vision. To remain colour-blind safe, these two schemes must comply with the following conditions:

discrete rainbow: This scheme must not be interpolated.
smooth rainbow: This scheme does not have to be used over the full range.

Okabe and Ito Colour Scheme

The following (qualitative) colour scheme is available:

okabe ito: Up to 8 colours.

Scientific Colour Schemes

The following (qualitative) color schemes are available:

stratigraphy: International Chronostratigraphic Chart (175 colours).
land: AVHRR Global Land Cover Classification (14 colours).
soil: FAO Reference Soil Groups (24 colours).

References

Jones, A., Montanarella, L. & Jones, R. (Ed.) (2005). Soil atlas of Europe. Luxembourg: European Commission, Office for Official Publications of the European Communities. 128 pp. ISBN: 92-894-8120-X.

Okabe, M. & Ito, K. (2008). Color Universal Design (CUD): How to Make Figures and Presentations That Are Friendly to Colorblind People. URL: https://jfly.uni-koeln.de/color/.

Tol, P. (2018). Colour Schemes. SRON. Technical Note No. SRON/EPS/TN/09-002, issue 3.1. URL: https://personal.sron.nl/~pault/data/colourschemes.pdf

Commission for the Geological Map of the World

Author

N. Frerebeau

Examples

## Okabe and Ito colour scheme
colour("okabe ito")(8)
#> #000000 #E69F00 #56B4E9 #009E73 #F0E442 #0072B2 #D55E00 #CC79A7
plot_scheme(colour("okabe ito")(8))

## Paul Tol's colour schemes
### Qualitative data
plot_scheme(colour("bright")(7))
plot_scheme(colour("contrast")(3))
plot_scheme(colour("vibrant")(7))
plot_scheme(colour("pale")(6))
plot_scheme(colour("dark")(6))
plot_scheme(colour("muted")(9))
plot_scheme(colour("light")(9))
### Diverging data
plot_scheme(colour("sunset")(11))
plot_scheme(colour("BuRd")(9))
plot_scheme(colour("PRGn")(9))
### Sequential data
plot_scheme(colour("YlOrBr")(9))
plot_scheme(colour("iridescent")(23))
plot_scheme(colour("discrete rainbow")(14))
plot_scheme(colour("discrete rainbow")(23))
plot_scheme(colour("smooth rainbow")(34))

## Scientific colour schemes
### Geologic timescale
plot_scheme(colour("stratigraphy")(175))
### AVHRR global land cover classification
plot_scheme(colour("land")(14))
### FAO soil reference groups
plot_scheme(colour("soil")(24))

## Adjust colour levels
PRGn <- colour("PRGn")
plot_scheme(PRGn(9, range = c(0.5, 1)))