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A Better Default Colormap for Matplotlib | SciPy 2015 | Nathaniel Smith and Stéfan van der Walt

Enthought · talk · Watch on YouTube

Data visualization & information designData science & statistics

What it is

SciPy 2015 talk by Nathaniel Smith and Stefan van der Walt on choosing a new default colormap for Matplotlib. It covers why Jet misleads, how perceptual color spaces work, and how viridis was designed.

Why Hacker News recommends it

HN's go-to recommendation for colormap and color-perception questions; commenters call it funny, brief, clear and a favorite talk.

  • 15 people recommended it
  • 14 different months
  • 6 strong recommendations
  • first 2015, last 2026

What HN commenters said

  1. “This hilarious SciPy2015 talk[1] convinced me to switch to the Parula color scheme.”

    Hilarious talk convincing viewers to abandon Jet colormap

    vitalique, 2018-08 · Strong recommendation · in “New Map Scale Is More Readable by People Who Are Color Blind”

  2. “One of my favorite talks ever is on this subject”

    Perceptually uniform colour schemes

    Mizza, 2019-04 · Strong recommendation · in “Unveiling the first-ever image of a black hole [video]”

  3. “I’d strongly recommend watching this presentation at SciPy 2015 where Viridis and Inferno were first presented”

    Presentation where Viridis and Inferno were first presented

    kbd, 2019-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Turbo, an Improved Rainbow Colormap for Visualization”

  4. “These shortcomings were the exact reason why Viridis was created as exemplified in this brilliant talk”

    Explains Jet shortcomings that led to Viridis

    spectramax, 2019-08 · Strong recommendation · in “Turbo, an Improved Rainbow Colormap for Visualization”

  5. “here is an amazing presentation of Matplotlib's new colormaps”

    Presentation on Matplotlib's new perceptually uniform colormaps

    neilpanchal, 2019-10 · Strong recommendation · in “Designing Accessible Color Systems”

  6. “I have to mention this fantastic presentation on colormaps”

    Presentation on perceptually uniform colormaps

    azepoi, 2020-06 · Strong recommendation · in “How to Avoid Equidistant HSV Colors (2011)”

  7. “goes into some details about physical perception and what it means for picking colors”

    Details of physical perception and picking colors

    elsherbini, 2016-04 · Recommendation · in “HCL: a color model that actually matches our perceptions (2011)”

  8. “actually spends a good ten minutes on explaining colour theory, and makes it look very simple in the process”

    Explains colour theory simply and colour spaces for colourblindness

    vanderZwan, 2017-10 · Recommendation · in “Sorting Algorithms Revisualized”

Excerpts from Hacker News comments, linked to the originals. Summaries and labels were written by a language model from those comments.

Topics: viridis, matplotlib, colormaps, color perception, data visualization, colorblindness

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