VizWorld.com

ColorSchemeDesigner.com is a nice javascript-based website that allows you to quickly and easily design web-safe color palletes with a variety of designs.  Full support for mono, complement, triad, tetrad, analogic, and accents are supported, along with Vision simulations for various types of color-blindness.  Color selections can be previewed with a template light and dark site for a quick sample, and easily exported to RGB schemes, Photoshop ACO palettes, GIMP GPL palettes, and more.

Color Scheme Designer 3.

Graphics colorblind, colors, Website

For those of you doing web development, you might want to try running your pages through the “Colorblind Web Page Filter”.  Simply enter the URL of your webpage, and it will download all of the assets and process them through the colorblindness filter of your choice.  The screenshot above is VizWorld processed through the “Protan” filter, (Protanopia, where red appears dark).  It’s a bit slow, but a great simple way to check your graphics for colorblind-related issues.

Colorblind Web Page Filter. via @nicholaspatten

Science colorblind, colors, human vision, web

A new study published in the June Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows a new mathematical model that could become the foundation of human color perception theory.

Professor A. Kimball Romney’s research led to this mathematical visualization of cone photo receptor sensitivities. In theory, this visualization is the operational key to creating uniform, high quality color in a variety of fields.

The new model yields a 99.4% match.

via Social scientist creates computer model to determine human perception of hues.

Science biomed, colors, journal, simulation

The first problem encountered in most visualizations is choosing good colors.  PSU has integreated data from the National Science Foundation and created “ColorBrewer”, a tool to make it alot easier.  Simply select the number of colorlevels you need, whether you want a “Sequential”, “Diverging”, or “Qualitative” Colormap, and then select from their predesigned colors.  The colors are displayed on a sample state & county map, and it then gives you all the information you need:

• Try out other overlay colors for roads or state lines
• Get the color codes in RGB, CMYK, or other colorspaces
• Find out if the colormap is photocopy friendly, colorblind friendly, projector friendly, and more

It’s a great tool to have in any visualization scientists’s (or graphic designer’s) toolbox.

ColorBrewer – Selecting Good Color Schemes for Maps.

Science colors, tool, visualization