cpt-city

An archive of colour gradients

Schemes from Nicholas Rougeux’s recreation of Mose Harris’ colour wheels

A map of Kimberley, North West Australia, using a USGS scheme

The Moon’s Mare Tranquillitatas, landing site for Apollo 11, by Paul Naylor

A map of Colombia using the Shadowxfox scheme

The MER Opportunity landing point on Western Arabia Terra, Mars, colour-ramp by Christopher Wesson LUT

Example Chandra image painted with the ImageJ cequal LUT

For cartography, technical illustration and design. The archive supports several formats and is organised by author.

• Schemes from the GRID-Arendal map & graphics library
• Art gradients by Blackheartedwolf
• Colour schemes by Cynthia Brewer
• The cividis map by Nuñez, Anderton and Renslow
• Obesity scales from CalorieLab
• The cmocean palettes by Kristen M. Thyng
• Selected five-colour palettes from COLOURlovers
• Subtle gradients from Crumblingwalls
• Palettes for positive functions by Duncan Agnew
• Dave Green’s cubehelix for astronomical intensity images
• Gradients by Diane Simoni
• DS9 colour scales for astronomical visualisation
• A DEM palette by Erika Mackay
• Toning samples by Eric R. Jeschke
• Themed art gradients by ElvenSword
• Selected legends from the European Soil Database
• ESRI colour ramp collection
• Fabio Crameri’s scientific colour maps
• Colour maps from Fractint
• Vista login button gradients by Fused Graphics
• The DEM palettes from drawmap, by Fred M. Erickson
• Felix von Luschan skin-colour scales
• Art gradients by Gacruxa
• A seismic amplitude scheme by Gery
• GIMP gradients
• Palettes from the graphics packages GIST and Yorick
• Generic Mapping Tools palettes
• Two-colour glossy gradients from GoSquared
• Gradients from GIMP Paint Studio
• GRASS colour ramps
• Colour tables from the h5utils package
• Colour palettes for geological time by Christian Heine
• Spectral gradients by Hult
• The IBCAO scheme for Arctic bathymetry
• The IBCSO scheme for the Southern Ocean
• A selection of scales from Unidata IDV
• ImageJ lookup tables for astronomy
• Gradients by Ingerlise
• Technical gradients by J.J. Green
• The ShadeMax palettes by Jim Mossman
• James McNames’ monotonic luminance ColorSpiral
• Diverging colour-maps by Kenneth Moreland
• The 12-bit rainbow by Kate Morley
• KST colour tables
• Loadboy’s gradients for graphic design
• Gradients by Michele Arnold
• A topo-bathymetric scheme by M. Burak Yikilmaz
• Precipitation palettes by Mark J. Fenbers
• Perceptually uniform colour-maps for Matplotlib
• Colour maps from NCL (NCAR command language)
• The NCDC’s scheme for probability of a white Christmas
• Nevit Dilmen’s extra gradients for the GIMP
• Pixel-art gradients by Neota
• The NGDC’s global relief palette for ETOPO1
• Legends for geospatial data by the NJGS
• Nord: arctic, north-bluish colour palettes
• Nicholas Rougeux: Harris’ colour wheels
• The NSA’s boundless informant heatmap
• Colour scales from NASA’s OceanColor site
• Gradients from the Open Clip Art Library
• Digital art gradients by Onecoldcanadian
• Ordnance Survey 1:250,000 elevation scale
• Piecrust Design’s natural gradients
• Gradients by Peggy Jentoft
• Gnuplot pm3d example scales by Petr Mikulík
• Paul Naylor’s lunar topography ramp
• Rafi’s sky gradients
• Gradients from Restless Concepts
• Rich Franzen’s pseudogrey
• SAGA preset colour tables
• Web 2.0 gradients from Sarah Davison
• Statistik Stadt Zürich scales
• DEM palettes by Thomas Dewez
• Nonlinear greyscales by Thomas Lotze
• Tom Patterson’s topographic scales
• Meteorological schemes from the UK Met Office
• Elevation schemes by the USGS and R. L. Langford
• Victor Huérfano’s Caribbean DEM palette
• An OS Martian topgraphy ramp by Christopher Wesson
• Wikipedia schemes
• Schemes from XKCD

Complete sets of gradient files are also available for download.

Selections from the archive

• Palettes for bathymetry and a selection of blues
• Palettes for topography
• Mixed palettes for topography & bathymetry
• Schemes for temperature
• Schemes for precipitation
• Various reds, greys, greens
• Schemes for diverging data
• Palettes with transparency
• Gradients of discordance

Notes

• The faq, answers to frequently asked questions
• The news on recent changes to the archive
• The formats supported
• Selected general and software links
• Copyright information
• Notes for contributors
• A big thank you to everyone who has contributed to this site
• The source for this site is available on GitLab