Python Data Analysis Cookbook

Choosing matplotlib color maps

The matplotlib color maps are getting a lot of criticism lately because they can be misleading; however, most colormaps are just fine in my opinion. The defaults are getting a makeover in matplotlib 2.0 as announced at http://matplotlib.org/style_changes.html (retrieved July 2015). Of course, there are some good arguments that do not support using certain matplotlib colormaps, such as jet. In art, as in data analysis, almost nothing is absolutely true, so I leave it up to you to decide. In practical terms, I think it is important to consider how to deal with print publications and the various types of color blindness. In this recipe, I visualize relatively safe colormaps with colorbars. This is a tiny selection of ...