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> "The background in the following images is barely distinguishable with Inferno (which is already punchier than Viridis), but clear with Turbo." (and presumabl
by spectramax 7y ago
> "The background in the following images is barely distinguishable with Inferno (which is already punchier than Viridis), but clear with Turbo." (and presumably also Jet)
This has to do with the dynamic range of the plot - if the author wants to show the difference in a small region (say foreground or background or some region of the plot), clip the plot to that specific region to show it in a smaller dynamic range. Using a non-linear colormap to highlight differences in a particular region of the colormap defeats the entire point of having a colormap - its purpose to display data with perceptual linearity.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoHorses for courses, I think. Let's say you are plotting the pressure distribution on two different racing car wings (spoilers), side by side. If you're trying to say "this wing gives 2.4% more downforce than that one", you would use Viridis or Inferno. But if you are trying to say "look at how the F1 car wing is different to the Indy car wing", then something like Turbo is better suited. Basically, I posit that sacrificing perceptual linearity for increased hue range can be worth it for conveying qualitative information.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- spectramax 7y agoI disagree. That’s still not a good way to show difference. Why not use a discrete color scheme for displaying differences? There is no reason to use a continuous color map, distort it and show qualitative differences - a continuous colormap is used for continuous variables.
- semi-extrinsic 7y agoThe underlying data is continuous, and you want to give a qualitative impression. Why is that a bad idea?