[R] (offtopic) I need two sets of 5 different color scales

[Uwe Ligges]

Tamas Papp wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I am plotting a policy function (result from a dynamic stochastic
> optimization problem, discretized approximation).  The policy function
> maps from an 2 x 2 x 2 x 3 x B x F state space to a B x F state space
> (B and F are usually between 4-6, and represent domestic and foreign
> savings.  The other variables are income (Y), inflation (Pi), domestic
> and foreign interest rates (R and Z)).  I actually wrote a plotting
> function to represent all this, the result is attached -- please have
> a look at it and help me...
> 
> I need advice in the following: I need two sets of colors for B and F
> which are easy to distinguish (when printed on a color laser printer),
> represent cardinality (ie have an intuitive mapping to an interval) or
> at least ordinality.
> 
> I have experimented with the following:
> 
> Bcolors <- hsv(.6, seq(0.2, 1, length=5), 1)
> Fcolors <- hsv(seq(.1,0, length=5), seq(0.2, 1, length=5)
> 
> this is what you see in the plot.  What colors would you use?  Do you
> think that varying both brightness and hue helps to distinguish
> colors?  Should I change saturation, too?

Hmm, Ross Ihaka has given a talk at the DSC2003 conference about 
constructing sensible colors. Unfortunately, there is no paper available 
at http://www.ci.tuwien.ac.at/Conferences/DSC-2003/Proceedings/ ...
Some notes and a color package are available at 
http://www.stat.auckland.ac.nz/~ihaka/color/

Also, you might want to look at the package RColorBrewer available at 
CRAN. The package is supposed to provide palettes of sensible colors.

Uwe Ligges


PS: If you want to send any attachments: Preferably upload to a web site 
and just post the link.



> Thanks,
> 
> Tamas
> 
> PS.: The plot is simply gzipped.  If you need a zipped version, or the
> source code, contact me.
> 
> 
> 
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