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I think that Mike Bostock did a fantastic job with his cubehelix rainbow. It really does look visually less-jarring than HCL. https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/310c

by samch 11y ago

I think that Mike Bostock did a fantastic job with his cubehelix rainbow. It really does look visually less-jarring than HCL. https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/310c99e53880faec2434 https://bl.ocks.org/mbostock/310c99e53880faec2434

tacos 11y ago
Every time a thread like this appears on HN I jump in and make angry monkey noises. But this is great! Note how it's the only one that looks like the paint chips in the store. Color is one of those things (like music software, or image processing) that nerds get excited about but just can't stop tripping over themselves. Nice to see a sane approach here for a change!
davidjohnstone 11y ago
It depends what properties you want. That is a much nicer looking rainbow, but it drops the perceptual uniformity that often makes HCL useful.
- tacos 11y ago
  This rainbow is interesting precisely because it shows that "perceptual uniformity" is not as useful as you might think. This is why people are still futzing with UX around volume controls and light dimmers. It's not just the math. Given "perception" there's no "uniformity" -- by definition.
  - tamana 11y ago
    Huh? The pretty rainbow is a perceptual mathematical model. The reason is it looks nicer than the HCL rainbow is that, unlike a HC rainbow at constant L, it includes luminance in its model of perception
    - tacos 11y ago
      To clarify: commenter above states that the pretty rainbow "drops the perceptual uniformity that often makes HCL useful." My point is that you shouldn't claim one is more useful than the other without specifying the problem domain you're optimizing for. Also the language itself isn't helpful: "perception" is fuzzy by definition and we have two distinct positions on what "uniformity" means. You've now added the magic word "model" to the mix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong If any of this were obvious, Adobe wouldn't have stupid color pickers and I wouldn't have three wildly diverging ways for adjusting audio volume and light levels in my home.
Retra 11y ago
There's not much yellow in that rainbow...

by samch 11y ago

tacos 11y ago

Every time a thread like this appears on HN I jump in and make angry monkey noises. But this is great! Note how it's the only one that looks like the paint chips in the store. Color is one of those things (like music software, or image processing) that nerds get excited about but just can't stop tripping over themselves. Nice to see a sane approach here for a change!

davidjohnstone 11y ago

It depends what properties you want. That is a much nicer looking rainbow, but it drops the perceptual uniformity that often makes HCL useful.

tacos 11y ago
This rainbow is interesting precisely because it shows that "perceptual uniformity" is not as useful as you might think. This is why people are still futzing with UX around volume controls and light dimmers. It's not just the math. Given "perception" there's no "uniformity" -- by definition.
- tamana 11y ago
  Huh? The pretty rainbow is a perceptual mathematical model. The reason is it looks nicer than the HCL rainbow is that, unlike a HC rainbow at constant L, it includes luminance in its model of perception
  - tacos 11y ago
    To clarify: commenter above states that the pretty rainbow "drops the perceptual uniformity that often makes HCL useful." My point is that you shouldn't claim one is more useful than the other without specifying the problem domain you're optimizing for. Also the language itself isn't helpful: "perception" is fuzzy by definition and we have two distinct positions on what "uniformity" means. You've now added the magic word "model" to the mix. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_models_are_wrong If any of this were obvious, Adobe wouldn't have stupid color pickers and I wouldn't have three wildly diverging ways for adjusting audio volume and light levels in my home.

Retra 11y ago

There's not much yellow in that rainbow...