Creating colour tables for the exploratory data analysis
by
Slawomir Nikiel
IRIO,Technical University of Zielona Gora, Podgorna 50, 65-246 Zielona Gora

The main objective of visualization is to get more insight into complex data sets. The most popular method is a conversion from two-dimensional arrays of numbers to colour table images. We can easily generate an image that represents milion of data values. This is constantly increasing development of the equipment for data acquisition. However, human physiology and psychology of vision reduces our perception to only a few dozen grayscale and a few hundred of colour coded data levels. The problem is how to choose the colours in order to maximize our insight into those numbers? I would like to present a current state of the pseudocolour techniques. I would discuss the rules of colour selection and the most commonly used pseudocolour colour tables such as grayscale, the rainbow, red-white-blue, sharp transition. Additionally I would introduce the fractal colour tables with their distinctive features especially useful when we deal with images representing continuous transitions in experimental data values.

Real data sets (bathymetry and fluid flow images) support the presented ideas.

Date received: February 4, 1999

Copyright © 1999 by the author(s). The author(s) of this document and the organizers of the conference have granted their consent to include this abstract in Atlas Conferences Inc. Document # cacp-35.