VMD-L Mailing List

From: John Stone (johns_at_ks.uiuc.edu)
Date: Sun May 06 2018 - 21:13:55 CDT

Hi,
  You can make VMD use any color scale you want, but before you run with
this and use a rainbow color scheme, you should first read this discussion
by Ken Moreland:
  http://www.kennethmoreland.com/color-advice/BadColorMaps.pdf

There are many discussions about choosing color maps well, but the
consensus in the visualization community is that many of
the most colorful "rainbow" style color maps have had a tendency to
cause more harm than good in terms of correct interpretation.

I attach an example script that emulates the built-in Matlab color
scales, but as I say above, you should think about what color scale
you want to use and why it's a good choice for whatever you're
trying to do.

Best,
  John Stone
  vmd_at_ks.uiuc.edu

On Sat, May 05, 2018 at 02:49:09PM +0000, McGuire, Kelly wrote:
> Wondering if the rainbow spectrum color scheme in PyMOL is possible in
> VMD? Looks like they use a python script so I'm guessing that is possible
> in VMD too. Here is the link:
>
> https://pymolwiki.org/index.php/Spectrum 

-- 
NIH Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Illinois, 405 N. Mathews Ave, Urbana, IL 61801
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/~johns/           Phone: 217-244-3349
http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/