7 ms·

Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color?

95 points by edw519 17y ago

jsonscripter 17y ago
A better title would talk about "Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color in Data Visualization" I initially thought the article would talk about colours in the design sense, and in which case engineers shouldn't worry whatsoever. It's not their job.
- amichail 17y ago
  Making a big deal out of color in the design sense in tech is probably a great way to discourage men from buying your product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBpXYI1r3Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBpXYI1r3Q
  - eru 17y ago
    Depends. I might not be able to see all colors, but I still appreciate their thoughtful use. Make colors support your design, but do not rely on them. And please take the more common forms of color blindness into account.
  - hughprime 17y ago
    Not necessarily, though using feminine colours probably is. I've never seen a man get annoyed by the large number of available of colours when buying a car, or even a shirt.
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
pixcavator 17y ago
I think "the rule" should be very simple: if your data has just one parameter, don’t use colors! The gray scale will give you the only faithful representation of the data.
- TallGuyShort 17y ago
  One definite advantage to colors, however, is expressing certain thresholds (as in the coast-line example). The only way to express multiple thresholds in gray-scale is to distort the scale, and then you no longer have a faithful representation either.
  - TrevorJ 17y ago
    You would still have to distort it unless you encoded the height to the luminance channel and only used the color channel to define boundaries.
  - pixcavator 17y ago
    If you are doing this visualization for yourself, you can experiment with colors and thresholds to bring out the features that are important (in your view). And that’s OK because you still have all the data at hand. If however this visualization is for someone else, such as the MRI given to a doctor, anything but a faithful representation would be very dangerous. Basically, you would substitute your judgment for that of a specialist.
- jacobolus 17y ago
  “The only faithful representation”? What?
  - pixcavator 17y ago
    In other words it's the same thing: data = image = table of numbers.
sp332 17y ago
I've only read partway into this article, but I really don't understand what he's saying in the section "Misleading Use of Color in Your Data". I literally didn't have a single one of the problems he listed with the colored representations. I don't see color banding, and I don't have trouble distinguishing various shades of green-to-cyan. Also, I think the third grayscale image in Figure 2 is really misleading, since it's showing a 2D cross-section as if it were 3D. Used properly, the colorscale (is that a word?) should give 3x the amount of data as grayscale, which I think is clearly shown in the fourth image.
- pixcavator 17y ago
  >the colorscale... should give 3x the amount of data as grayscale The visualization can't contain more data than the data itself!
  - sp332 17y ago
    Well, of course :) I mean the potential max amount of data can be increased with color, since now you have three axes (RBG instead of L). Although now that you mention it, he was only using "hue", and holding luminance steady, so I guess in this case it's the same - just rotating around the very outside edge of the color wheel without going inside. I still think it has more visual contrast, though.
- ars 17y ago
  Read it again then. Because his final images are MUCH better at visualizing the data, so he's doing something right.
  - sp332 17y ago
    Sure, now that I've finished it, I think he makes some excellent points overall. I just don't agree with what he wrote in that section.
- sophacles 17y ago
  Yes, used properly. He's showing ways that information can be misrepresented when using colorscales IMproperly. Also he's showing that there is no such thing as "the one true colorscale".
deleted 17y ago
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jbronn 17y ago
For those wondering, I believe the visualizations on this page were created with OpenDX (http://opendx.org/ http://opendx.org/) or its predecessor from IBM.
- sp332 17y ago
  You can register by email to get a copy, but the link they sent me is dead (looks like the website doesn't exist anymore). Someone put up a copy at http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.baldensperger/OpenDX-4.4.4-Setup.exe http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.baldensperger/OpenDX-4.4....

95 points by edw519 17y ago

A better title would talk about "Why Should Engineers and Scientists Be Worried About Color in Data Visualization" I initially thought the article would talk about colours in the design sense, and in which case engineers shouldn't worry whatsoever. It's not their job.

amichail 17y ago
Making a big deal out of color in the design sense in tech is probably a great way to discourage men from buying your product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBpXYI1r3Q http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcBpXYI1r3Q
- eru 17y ago
  Depends. I might not be able to see all colors, but I still appreciate their thoughtful use. Make colors support your design, but do not rely on them. And please take the more common forms of color blindness into account.
- hughprime 17y ago
  Not necessarily, though using feminine colours probably is. I've never seen a man get annoyed by the large number of available of colours when buying a car, or even a shirt.

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

pixcavator 17y ago

I think "the rule" should be very simple: if your data has just one parameter, don’t use colors! The gray scale will give you the only faithful representation of the data.

TallGuyShort 17y ago
One definite advantage to colors, however, is expressing certain thresholds (as in the coast-line example). The only way to express multiple thresholds in gray-scale is to distort the scale, and then you no longer have a faithful representation either.
- TrevorJ 17y ago
  You would still have to distort it unless you encoded the height to the luminance channel and only used the color channel to define boundaries.
- pixcavator 17y ago
  If you are doing this visualization for yourself, you can experiment with colors and thresholds to bring out the features that are important (in your view). And that’s OK because you still have all the data at hand. If however this visualization is for someone else, such as the MRI given to a doctor, anything but a faithful representation would be very dangerous. Basically, you would substitute your judgment for that of a specialist.
jacobolus 17y ago
“The only faithful representation”? What?
- pixcavator 17y ago
  In other words it's the same thing: data = image = table of numbers.

sp332 17y ago

I've only read partway into this article, but I really don't understand what he's saying in the section "Misleading Use of Color in Your Data". I literally didn't have a single one of the problems he listed with the colored representations. I don't see color banding, and I don't have trouble distinguishing various shades of green-to-cyan. Also, I think the third grayscale image in Figure 2 is really misleading, since it's showing a 2D cross-section as if it were 3D. Used properly, the colorscale (is that a word?) should give 3x the amount of data as grayscale, which I think is clearly shown in the fourth image.

pixcavator 17y ago
>the colorscale... should give 3x the amount of data as grayscale The visualization can't contain more data than the data itself!
- sp332 17y ago
  Well, of course :) I mean the potential max amount of data can be increased with color, since now you have three axes (RBG instead of L). Although now that you mention it, he was only using "hue", and holding luminance steady, so I guess in this case it's the same - just rotating around the very outside edge of the color wheel without going inside. I still think it has more visual contrast, though.
ars 17y ago
Read it again then. Because his final images are MUCH better at visualizing the data, so he's doing something right.
- sp332 17y ago
  Sure, now that I've finished it, I think he makes some excellent points overall. I just don't agree with what he wrote in that section.
sophacles 17y ago
Yes, used properly. He's showing ways that information can be misrepresented when using colorscales IMproperly. Also he's showing that there is no such thing as "the one true colorscale".

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

jbronn 17y ago

For those wondering, I believe the visualizations on this page were created with OpenDX (http://opendx.org/ http://opendx.org/) or its predecessor from IBM.

sp332 17y ago
You can register by email to get a copy, but the link they sent me is dead (looks like the website doesn't exist anymore). Someone put up a copy at http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.baldensperger/OpenDX-4.4.4-Setup.exe http://pagesperso-orange.fr/pierre.baldensperger/OpenDX-4.4....