[Biojava-l] Heat map gradients

Dan Bolser dmb at mrc-dunn.cam.ac.uk
Mon Jun 7 05:25:37 EDT 2004



A friend of mine in human computer interaction warns against such scales
(I found out when I asked him this exact same question). He prefers a
discrete scale of say 7 colors, which are clearly labeled with their
bounds. This is because we are not very good at judging the significance
of subtle color gradients, and the colors used and the context given can
all play a part in informing our decision. We can more clearly understand
a discrete color 'scale'.

Just one of those things I guess...

Dan.


On Mon, 7 Jun 2004 mark.schreiber at group.novartis.com wrote:

>Hi -
>
>Slightly off topic but,
>
>I am making an application that will display a heat map based on the value 
>of a variable. I'm wondering if anyone has some sample code for generating 
>a color on a gradient between color a and color b (red and green are 
>traditional but something generic would be nice) based on the value of the 
>variable?
>
>I guess this is the sort of thing you use for microarray displays/ 
>correlations etc. Cellular automata in this case but it should be useful 
>to others in the list.
>
>- Mark
>
>Mark Schreiber
>Principal Scientist (Bioinformatics)
>
>Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD)
>10 Biopolis Road
>#05-01 Chromos
>Singapore 138670
>www.nitd.novartis.com
>
>phone +65 6722 2973
>fax  +65 6722 2910
>
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