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Abstract
Some 15 years ago, Visualization Viewpoints published an influential article titled Rainbow Color Map (Still) Considered Harmful (Borland and Taylor, 2007). The paper argued that the “rainbow colormap’s characteristics of confusing the viewer, obscuring the data and actively misleading interpretation make it a poor choice for visualization.” Subsequent articles often repeat and extend these arguments, so much so that avoiding rainbow colormaps, along with their derivatives, has become dogma in the visualization community. Despite this loud and persistent recommendation, scientists continue to use rainbow colormaps. Have we failed to communicate our message, or do rainbow colormaps offer advantages that have not been fully appreciated? We argue that rainbow colormaps have properties that are underappreciated by existing design conventions. We explore key critiques of the rainbow in the context of recent research to understand where and how rainbows might be misunderstood. Choosing a colormap is a complex task, and rainbow colormaps can be useful for selected applications.
Publication Date
5-17-2023
Journal Title
IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications
Publisher
IEEE
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
C. Ware, M. Stone and D. A. Szafir, "Rainbow Colormaps Are Not All Bad," in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications, vol. 43, no. 3, pp. 88-93, 1 May-June 2023, doi: 10.1109/MCG.2023.3246111. keywords: {Image color analysis;Semantics;Data visualization;Estimation;Reliability engineering},
Comments
This is an open access article published by IEEE in IEEE Computer Graphics and Applications in 2023, available online: https://dx.doi.org/10.1109/MCG.2023.3246111