Editing Talk:2537: Painbow Award

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LOL [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 19:49, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
:f!rst p0st [[Special:Contributions/172.69.170.53|172.69.170.53]] 19:50, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Mein gott, this color palette IS actually painful to look at.  [[Special:Contributions/172.70.178.161|172.70.178.161]] 20:02, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

The caption has changed since the image was captured ("color gradient" changed to "color scale"), we need to pull the new comic. [[User:Barmar|Barmar]] ([[User talk:Barmar|talk]]) 20:08, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
:I updated the file, although the changes haven't taken effect yet. [[User:Theusaf|theusaf]] ([[User talk:Theusaf|talk]]) 20:37, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Does anyone know what Lambda is often used for in physics (or other sciences) as it relates to Theta, where Theta is phase?  [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 20:48, 3 November 2021 (UTC).
:I'm surprised YOU don't know. {{w|Wavelength}}. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 22:38, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
::Why are you talking to yourself? [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 21:07, 3 November 2021 (UTC).
::Wouldn't that make this chart self-referential, in that each color output at any particular x,y coordinate can somehow be measured in terms of wavelength and phasing (red shift)? [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 21:17, 3 November 2021 (UTC).
:::I think you're responding to my comment (it seems to be above it, though?). Not sure exactly what you mean by self-referential either, but I suppose somewhat. Assuming this is a black body curve, the emission spectra has a peak at the point where the graph shows "peak" intensity; this wavelength is based off the temperature of the black body itself (see Wien's displacement law), whilst the redshift is based on the relative velocity of an observer & the black body (i.e. a star, usually).--[[User:Sapphirejulia|Sapphirejulia]] ([[User talk:Sapphirejulia|talk]]) 23:28, 3 November 2021 (UTC)
:If I had to guess (as an "armchair" astronomer), it seems to be similar to that of a black body (Planck curve) but also showing the phase. A phase shift to me means change in wavelength, i.e. Delta lambda / lambda, but that's normally denoted by the z-parameter (see Wikipedia's redshift article). There's also a phase angle listed under astronomy on Wikipedia, which could relate but never heard of it before. --[[User:Sapphirejulia|Sapphirejulia]] ([[User talk:Sapphirejulia|talk]]) 23:28, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

Scientific publications aren't the only contenders for the award.  I see a Painbow during almost every TV weather report.  Captured an image of one of them, hope it displays correctly.
[[file:WeatherBow.png|thumb|center|550px|alt=Painbow used by a TV weather forecast]]

[[User:JohnB|JohnB]] ([[User talk:JohnB|talk]]) 22:20, 3 November 2021 (UTC)

This subreddit has a lot of these scales: https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisugly [[User:Fabian42|Fabian42]] ([[User talk:Fabian42|talk]]) 00:03, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

When I'm developing a continuum of colours on a scale (or scale-like) system I tend to try one of two things:
* Hue-based angle, going from one hue-angle to another hue-angle (usually normalised for fullest saturation) at no more than ⅚ths of a rotation between, to keep maximum looking too like minimum, and choosing the endpoints and via-point to be meaningful (e.g. red to green via blue, or magenta to yellow via cyan - whatever best works). 
* A series of connected straight-lines through the RGB colour-cube, without too much criss-crossings, again with meaning. I'll make that more complex if necessary, e.g. for eightmap of the Earth, deepest depth #000 (or #002ish, maybe) to #0FF at the minimum depth, linearly #0(n)(n) for n inversely normalised to depth; quickly use #0FF->#FF8->#0F0 across the intertidal range; then from lowest elevations to highest #0F0 shades to something like #A50 (or maybe a grey) then onward to #FFF for the top. All done with simple gradient-based formulae linking height(/depth) directly to whatever changing component there is.
...though I don't usually thing about dichromatic vision (let alone monochromatic), in either case, so I may indeed make things difficult for some people. [[Special:Contributions/172.70.85.249|172.70.85.249]] 01:19, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

At the moment it states: "The red then turns back into green as the intensity increases further." Is there something I misunderstands or is the intensity not decreasing when going from top to bottom? I would have said "when the intensity decreases further" --[[User:Kynde|Kynde]] ([[User talk:Kynde|talk]]) 08:18, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I just like to share some great 'further reads' on scientific colormaps for the ones interested. A must watch on this topic is the talk by [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAoljeRJ3lU Nathaniel Smith and Stéfan van der Walt on the development of matplotlibs colormap]. Apart from very entertaining, it has been the best introduction to color theory I've ever seen.
If you're more into scientific literature, just get directly to the [https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19160-7?s=09 Nature article explaining proper color maps]. Fabio Crameri, the author of this article is advocating good colormap practice and also has a [https://www.fabiocrameri.ch/colourmaps/ website providing scientific colormaps] that I found very beneficial. [[User:Lvdgraaff|Lvdgraaff]] ([[User talk:Lvdgraaff|talk]]) 13:34, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

Ribbon colors appear to only be consistent about first and second place - after that, they're all over.  See https://www.mclaughlinribbonawards.com/award-ribbon-place-color-guide/ and https://www.classicdesignawards.com/ribbonstock.shtml#horsecolors for examples.  I've tweaked the third place note - leaving these links for anyone curious.  --[[User:Bobson|Bobson]] ([[User talk:Bobson|talk]]) 14:15, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I found this to describe phase as it relates to wavelength: http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/%28Gh%29/guides/rs/rad/basics/wv.rxml#:~:text=The%20phase%20of%20a%20wave%2C%20measured%20in%20degrees%2C,position%20of%20the%20wave%20along%20the%20vertical%20line.  It's similar to how phase is used to measure any sine wave (including alternating current, audio, etc.).  While in this case, wavelength is not necessarily based on the electromagnetic spectrum, you could argue that given that this could be a graph indicating the amount of energy at any given wavelength during the different phases of a wave, that what is plotted on the y axis are the different wavelengths of light (though I would expect to see shorter wave lengths producing more energy, not less, which may be what this graph is indicating given that white is at both extremes, notwithstanding the black curve).

That said, if indeed wavelength refers to light, then it would indeed make the chart self-referential, in that you could look at any produced color and run that color (or in the case of white light, colors) through the y axis in order to determine the amount of energy (depicted as colors) produced at different phases for that particular wave length.  [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 16:25, 4 November 2021 (UTC)
:I'll add that wavelength (measured as hertz and referred to as frequency) and phase are very common measurements in alternating current (in that you cannot connect a generator that is out of phase with a high voltage line without risking damage to the generator), however there are other factors that feed into energy produced beyond hertz or phase (particularly, frequency (hertz), voltage, and amps).  [[Special:Contributions/127.0.0.1|127.0.0.1]] 16:34, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

== Color blind representations ==

I made color blind representations of this comic to show how bad the color scale is then: original, grayscale, protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia. But I can't upload them here as a new account. Could someone grab them and add them to the page? https://imgur.com/a/tyS28Hd [[User:R0uge|R0uge]] ([[User talk:R0uge|talk]]) 15:32, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

I am someone with Deuteranomaly, a different (and more common) form of colorblindness than protanopia. I also have extreme difficulty in distinguishing the red and green in the graph; however, the description only lists protanopic individuals as those with difficulty seeing it. Because deuteranopia is much more common than protanopia and also affects the vision of the graph, the description should list both. [[User:MrYellow04|MrYellow04]] ([[User talk:MrYellow04|talk]]) 16:56, 4 November 2021 (UTC)

== Good colored graph ==

Suggestion: add Randall's graph but with a better color scale to see if something interesting is hiding in the data?
sirKitKat
[[Special:Contributions/162.158.233.11|162.158.233.11]] 07:43, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Found someone who did it on GitHub: https://github.com/steveharoz/painbow [[Special:Contributions/172.70.147.135|172.70.147.135]] 07:14, 11 November 2021 (UTC)

Note: That GitHub also indicates that the Painbow scale is actually (sometimes) more useful for finding interesting things in data than "good" color scales, and may contain helpful code (or at least data) for those who wish to implement the Painbow in other software. 15:06, 13 August 2023 (UTC).