Colour Palettes for Digital Elevation Models

Owein Thuillier (1, 2, 3) , Nicolas Le Josse (1) , Alexandru-Liviu Olteanu (2, 3) , Marc Sevaux (2, 3) , Hervé Tanguy (1)

1 Thales DMS France, SAS
2 UBS - Université de Bretagne Sud
3 Lab-STICC_DECIDE - Equipe DECIDE

We provide a collection of 18 colour palettes for the efficient visualisation of Digital Elevation Models (DEMs), for example in the form of heatmaps. More precisely, we propose a combination of palettes from our own production and palettes extracted from the GEneral Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans (GEBCO), including their most recent charts as well as first editions of their paper charts from 1910-1930, 1932-1966, 1958-1973 and 1973-1982. These colour palettes have been harmonised in order to span a wide range of elevations, extending from the lowest depth of 11 000 metres, found in the Challenger Deep of the Mariana Trench, to the greatest height of 9 000 metres, reached atop Mount Everest. Moreover, these 18 colour palettes are supplied in the following 5 colour spaces: RGB (Red, Green, Blue), RGB 01, Hexadecimal, HSL (Hue, Saturation, Lightness) and HSV (Hue, Saturation, Value). 

Keywords: visualisation; heatmaps; colour palettes; colour schemes; digital elevation models; elevation data; raster grids; topography; bathymetry; visualisation heatmaps colour palettes colour schemes digital elevation models elevation data raster grids topography bathymetry

Domains: Digital Libraries [cs.DL]

Owein Thuillier, Nicolas Le Josse, Alexandru-Liviu Olteanu, Marc Sevaux, Hervé Tanguy. Colour Palettes for Digital Elevation Models. 2024, ⟨10.5281/zenodo.10530295⟩. ⟨hal-04427802⟩