Methodological review demonstrates perceptual flaws of rainbow color maps in data visualization, suggesting adoption of functionally superior display alternatives.
In this article, we reiterate the characteristics that make the rainbow color map a poor choice, provide examples that clearly illustrate these deficiencies even on simple data sets, and recommend better color maps for several categories of display. The goal is to make the rainbow color map as rare in visualization as the goto statement is in programming - which complicates the task of analyzing and verifying program correctness
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Borland et al. (2007) studied this question.
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