Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
http://meta.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_polygon_map
Political maps use 2-level coloring schemes.
Main color is selected as to avoid 2 neighbour
countries having the
same color.
It's shade is selected randomly.
> The problem is to select such N (N about 8) colors
generators,
and such colors for seas, rivers, city and country
labels,
and other objects (borders,
river/mountains/island/sea labels etc.),
that makes maps most readable.
Currently used scheme is:
Colors for:
city dots white
city labels white
rivers #000060
seas #000060
country labels #FF8080
Color generator 0 # cyan
$r = rand 64;
$g = 160 + rand 64;
$b = 160 + rand 64;
Color generator 1 # green
$r = 64 + rand 64;
$g = 160 + rand 64;
$b = 64 + rand 64;
Color generator 2 # yellow-green
$r = 128 + rand 32;
$g = 192 + rand 64;
$b = rand 32;
Color generator 3 # greenish-blue
$r = rand 32;
$g = 64 + rand 64;
$b = 128 + rand 64;
Color generator 4 # yellow
$r = 128 + rand 64;
$g = 96 + rand 64;
$b = rand 32;
Color generator 5 # orange
$r = 128 + rand 64;
$g = 64 + rand 64;
$b = rand 64;
Color generator 6 # magenta
$r = 160 + rand 64;
$g = 64 + rand 64;
$b = 160 + rand 64;
Color generator 7 # gray
$r = 96 + rand 64;
$g = $r - 16 + rand 32;
$b = $r - 16 + rand 32;
> But it doesn't give very good results.
> Anyone with better idea for coloring ?
Hum.
I would say...put city dots and city labels in black.
There is nothing such as black for readability.
Put all the oceans in white. On a higher scale map, it
is quite more visible. You may distinguish the
different continent much more easily. Think
printability as well. No one like to kill his color
printer with just one map :-)
I would also put rivers in white. It is much more
visible as well.
Alternatively, a very clear blue. But you should try
white.
If you keep the labels in white (rather than black),
the background colors will always have to be very dark
for the labels to be visible. If the labels are black,
you keep basically all the possibilities you could
wish in terms of coloring.
As for the different colors, well I can't speak
automated generation. But what I would do (at least
for a geographical atlas) would be to use shades
varying between green and brown. Perhaps dark yellow.
It might be enough to support non confusion between
countries, without looking so strong and colorful.
Again, I would avoid too strong and flashy colors.
Some quick ideas (no generation)
52 104 38
45 155 17
73 231 33
124 213 152
190 228 172
110 154 89
101 173 23
143 173 23
147 201 29
223 245 195
175 255 206
120 135 102
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