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Escaping RGBland: Selecting colors for statistical graphics

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  • Zeileis, Achim
  • Hornik, Kurt
  • Murrell, Paul

Abstract

Statistical graphics are often augmented by the use of color coding information contained in some variable. When this involves the shading of areas (and not only points or lines)--e.g., as in bar plots, pie charts, mosaic displays or heatmaps--it is important that the colors are perceptually based and do not introduce optical illusions or systematic bias. Based on the perceptually-based Hue-Chroma-Luminance (HCL) color space suitable color palettes are derived for coding categorical data (qualitative palettes) and numerical variables (sequential and diverging palettes).

Suggested Citation

  • Zeileis, Achim & Hornik, Kurt & Murrell, Paul, 2009. "Escaping RGBland: Selecting colors for statistical graphics," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 53(9), pages 3259-3270, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:csdana:v:53:y:2009:i:9:p:3259-3270
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    6. Emura, Takeshi & Lin, Yi-Shuan, 2013. "A comparison of normal approximation rules for attribute control charts," MPRA Paper 51029, University Library of Munich, Germany.
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    11. Anette Fasang & Marcel Raab, 2014. "Beyond Transmission: Intergenerational Patterns of Family Formation Among Middle-Class American Families," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 51(5), pages 1703-1728, October.
    12. Tseng, George C., 2010. "Quantile map: Simultaneous visualization of patterns in many distributions with application to tandem mass spectrometry," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1124-1137, April.
    13. Reto Stauffer & Georg J. Mayr & Markus Dabernig & Achim Zeileis, 2013. "Somewhere over the Rainbow: How to Make Effective Use of Colors in Meteorological Visualizations," Working Papers 2013-37, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    14. Ben Jann, 2023. "Color palettes for Stata graphics: An update," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 23(2), pages 336-385, June.
    15. Jonas Schöley, 2021. "The centered ternary balance scheme: A technique to visualize surfaces of unbalanced three-part compositions," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 44(19), pages 443-458.
    16. Fox, John & Hong, Jangman, 2009. "Effect Displays in R for Multinomial and Proportional-Odds Logit Models: Extensions to the effects Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 32(i01).
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