In
color science Color science is the scientific study of color including lighting and optics; measurement of light and color; the physiology, psychophysics, and modeling of color vision; and color reproduction.
History
Organizations
* International Commiss ...
, a color gradient specifies a range of position-dependent
color
Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are associ ...
s, usually used to fill a region.
Name
A color gradient is also known as a color ramp or a color progression. In assigning colors to a set of values, a gradient is a continuous colormap, a type of
color scheme
In color theory, a color scheme is the choice of colors used in various artistic and design contexts. For example, the "Achromatic" use of a white background with black text is an example of a basic and commonly default color scheme in web de ...
.
Definitions
* Color gradient is a set of colors arranged in a
linear order
In mathematics, a total or linear order is a partial order in which any two elements are comparable. That is, a total order is a binary relation \leq on some set X, which satisfies the following for all a, b and c in X:
# a \leq a ( reflexive ...
( ordered)
* A continuous colormap is a curve through a
colorspace
A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital representa ...
3D RGB profile of the Linear Gray Continous color gradient.png, gray
3D RGB profile of cubehelix color gradient.png, cubehelix
0 3d 60 75 v.png, HSV rainbow
3D RGB profile of the Smooth Cool Warm diverging color gradient by Kenneth Moreland.png, diverging
Strict definition
A colormap is a
function
Function or functionality may refer to:
Computing
* Function key, a type of key on computer keyboards
* Function model, a structured representation of processes in a system
* Function object or functor or functionoid, a concept of object-oriente ...
which associate a real value r with point c in
color space
A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represent ...
:
which is defined by:
* a colorspace C
* an increasing sequence of
sampling points