Toward an Improved Colormapping Workflow: New Task-Driven Tools and Techniques for High-Level Colormapping Applications in Scientific Visualization

Color, a nearly ubiquitous encoder for scientific visualizations across disciplines with robust range and versatility, often remains constrained to narrow hue, luminance, and saturation ranges within the scientific community. Despite significant work in perceptual literature on more effective uses of colormapping, difficulties persist in bridging research and practice. Obstacles impeding the adoption of modern color tools by domain scientists include scarcities of convenient and user-friendly color mapping resources, of available expertise and guidance, of precedents within the community, and of time available to researchers to familiarize themselves with new color conventions. In order to address these challenges, we present a suite of tools allowing scientists to rapidly and intuitively construct data-driven colormaps for their individual needs. These tools include a newly updated task-driven website interface, Sciviscolor, with paired comprehensive color tutorials; a searchable database by task, usage, luminance and hue range of designer-crafted linear colormaps; and a new, integrated interface within the Colormoves web-based software for automated construction of "wave" colormaps (colormaps with multiple luminance ranges across hues) based on a set of user-selected parameters. We are also working to facilitate a Colormoves—Paraview integration, which would allow for a more seamless workflow from colormap creation to application on data.