new interface functions for LinearSegmentedColormap

After experimenting with colormaps for a while, I was able to make both
discrete (piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormaps
work. Although colormaps can be created directly using
LinearSegmentedColormap from the matplotlib.colors package, this is a
tedious and error-prone process. So, I compiled a set of three interface
functions. (I wrote two of these myself, and got one from the SciPy
website). The two functions that I wrote permit one to define a discrete
(piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormap directly via
a sequence of colors and a set of thresholds specified as lists. Each color
may be specified either via an RGB tuple or via an English color name known
to webcolors.name_to_rgb. I'm going to submit all of this to the matplotlib
developers forums in the hopes of getting it incorporated into matplotlib.

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Dr. Phillip M. Feldman wrote:

After experimenting with colormaps for a while, I was able to make both
discrete (piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormaps
work. Although colormaps can be created directly using
LinearSegmentedColormap from the matplotlib.colors package, this is a
tedious and error-prone process. So, I compiled a set of three interface
functions. (I wrote two of these myself, and got one from the SciPy
website). The two functions that I wrote permit one to define a discrete
(piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormap directly via
a sequence of colors and a set of thresholds specified as lists. Each color
may be specified either via an RGB tuple or via an English color name known
to webcolors.name_to_rgb. I'm going to submit all of this to the matplotlib
developers forums in the hopes of getting it incorporated into matplotlib.

Something I should have mentioned earlier: for the discrete case, one good option is to use a ListedColormap to make a map with only a few colors, and then use a BoundaryNorm to handle the mapping from data values to colors. See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/image_masked.html?highlight=image_masked
for a BoundaryNorm example. Unfortunately, we don't have an example of using it with a ListedColormap, but it should be straigtforward; the key point is to set the BoundaryNorm ncolors kwarg to match the actual number of colors in the colormap.

Eric

Hello Eric,

The functions that I've created make it possible to generate a discrete (piecewise-constant) or continuous (piecewise-linear) colormap and register it at a single shot. These functions also accept a list of thresholds if the user wants to specify non-default thresholds. It seems as though the best alternatives require multiple steps and a considerable amount of fiddling. Furthermore, my functions are thoroughly documented, while the alternatives are not. I've found that it often takes less time to write something myself than to figure out how to use an undocumented function (which may not even do what I need). If you agree that my functions provide a better interface, then I hope that you and John Hunter can get them incorporated into matplotlib.

Yours,

Phillip

Eric Firing wrote:

···

Dr. Phillip M. Feldman wrote:

After experimenting with colormaps for a while, I was able to make both
discrete (piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormaps
work. Although colormaps can be created directly using
LinearSegmentedColormap from the matplotlib.colors package, this is a
tedious and error-prone process. So, I compiled a set of three interface
functions. (I wrote two of these myself, and got one from the SciPy
website). The two functions that I wrote permit one to define a discrete
(piecewise-constant) and continuous (piecewise-linear) colormap directly via
a sequence of colors and a set of thresholds specified as lists. Each color
may be specified either via an RGB tuple or via an English color name known
to webcolors.name_to_rgb. I'm going to submit all of this to the matplotlib
developers forums in the hopes of getting it incorporated into matplotlib.

Something I should have mentioned earlier: for the discrete case, one good option is to use a ListedColormap to make a map with only a few colors, and then use a BoundaryNorm to handle the mapping from data values to colors. See http://matplotlib.sourceforge.net/examples/pylab_examples/image_masked.html?highlight=image_masked

for a BoundaryNorm example. Unfortunately, we don't have an example of using it with a ListedColormap, but it should be straigtforward; the key point is to set the BoundaryNorm ncolors kwarg to match the actual number of colors in the colormap.

Eric