Integrate scientific colormaps

[eamerj]

Feature description

A growing community of scientists are utilizing scientific colormaps.

See: https://gmd.copernicus.org/articles/11/2541/2018/

and, particularly, https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-19160-7, where a compelling case for standardization and science-based colormaps is made.

These are presently very simple to add to QGIS, with instructions and formatted files provided for doing so, but I am making the argument that they should be included at installation, to encourage their use. If the dev team agrees, I imagine that including the feature would be simple (but I must apologize, I only base this on the ease in incorporating them after the fact as I have done!) .

Thank you for all that you do!

Additional context

No response

[roya0045]

I'd argue that this may be more fit for https://qgis-contribution.github.io/QGIS-ResourceSharing/

[nyalldawson]

@eamerj if you attach exported versions of these ramps as XML (from the style manager dialog) then I'll add them to the default install!

[eamerj]

Amazing! Attached are all the .xml files. Also included is the license and acknowledgement statement - I'm not sure how these would get integrated. I see an "information" button in the lower left of the ramp editor, but I've never seen it enabled. Alternatively it is included in the main documentation?

I may not be able to write script efficiently but I could write a section in documentation, should it be needed. Thanks again!

scm_qgis_xml.zip

[roya0045]

SCIRAMPS.zip Here are the merged ramps

[nyalldawson]

Can you explain what the "S" suffix versions are supposed to be used for? Eg. budaS:

I can't see how those could be useful :shrug: and would suggest we omit those

[eamerj]

They are categorical ramps, and are supposed to be for ordered, sequential data, according to their use case guidelines. From the supplementary information in their latest paper:

“Categorical colour maps contain a high number of unordered unique colour values. They are in- tended to colour multiple individual data points or entire graphs to make them distinguishable from each other…. They are based on the original, continuous Scientific colour maps and therefore maintain all relevant scientific characteristics like CVD friendliness and grey-scale readability“

so I imagine the most common use case would be for vector datasets where the user wants to represent a high number of unique attributes, but for it to retain a sense of repeatability. They seem like they may be fairly specific… if you think they should be omitted, please do! Honestly, I haven’t used them. They are out there for someone to install easily if they so desire.

[nyalldawson]

if you think they should be omitted

That's my gut feeling -- they may work OK for categorical displays in other applications, but in QGIS they'll only work well if the number of categories was an exact match for the number of categories this ramp has been designed for. Possibly if they were created as "Preset Color" ramps instead of "Gradient" ramps in QGIS they'll work as intended, but for now I'd just skip them.

[roya0045]

They could be ok for rendering ranges to show contrast, but the uneven width of sections and the limited palette makes me doubt that.

[eamerj]

Sounds like we all agree to drop them - thanks for the discussion and perspective