Info

This tool was designed to create sequential color schemes for choropleth maps. You can manipulate colors, number of classes of your scheme and visual difference between them by applying color distance steps defined by CIEDE2000 method. To get some more detailed instructions hover with your mouse over Info Yes, just like that :)
 or Info Yes, just like that :) .

We believe it will be helpful to design better and more readable maps. Though the Sequential Color Scheme generator 1.0 seems to be a primitive tool, there is quiet lot of knowledge and research behind it, check out our papers (references below) and see ;-)

Enjoy!




Set the number of color scheme classes
Info Step #3
How many classes in your color scheme you wish to have? first
Three, four, five, or even more! Then set the n number accordingly :)

Set the color distance steps between classes Info Step #4
Set the perceptual difference between adjacent classes of your scheme (set n-1 values).
Perceptual difference is defined with CIEDE2000 color distance formula (ΔE 00 ).


The bigger ΔE 00 the bigger perceptual difference between shades:


Based on experimental results (see references at the bottom of the page) we recommend to apply ΔE 00 >4
and magnify differences between shades towards the middle of your scheme, in the same manner as the default settings (i. e. 4-8-10-8-4)









Related research:

Brychtova, A. and Coltekin, A. (2015). Discriminating classes of sequential and qualitative colour schemes. International Journal of Cartography, 1(1), pp. 62-78, DOI:10.1080/23729333.2015.1055643
Brychtova, A. (2015). Exploring the influence of colour distance and legend position on choropleth maps readability. In J. Brus, A. Vondráková, & V. Voženílek (Eds.), Modern Trends in Cartography: Selected Papers of CARTOCON 2014 (Lecture No., pp. 315–326). doi:978-3-319-07926-4
Brychtova, A. and Coltekin, A. (2014). An Empirical User Study for Measuring the Influence of Colour Distance and Font Size in Map Reading Using Eye Tracking. The Cartographic Journal, 0(0), pp. 1743277414Y.000. doi:10.1179/1743277414Y.0000000103
Brychtová, A. and Vondráková, A. (2014). Green versus Red: Eye-tracking evaluation of sequential colour schemes. In SGEM 2014 Informatics, Geoinformatics and Remote Sensing Proceedings Volume III (p. 8). Sofia, Bulgaria: STEF92 Technology Ltd. doi:10.5593/SGEM2014/B23/S11.082


© 2015 Alžběta Brychtová (ideas, research behind, design), Jitka Doležalová (math) & Ondřej Štrubl (php)
Palacký University Olomouc, Faculty of Science, Department of Geoinformatics


We have many ideas how to improve the tool, but we need more time to do so. However if you have any comments or suggestions, don't hesitate a second to tell us (send a mail to Alžběta or Jitka).
Color Picker by John Dyer
Time: 0.0044419765472412