Researched the origins and purposes of all the colormaps built into matplotlib, then added the info tothecolormaps() docstring inpyplot.py

This info is now at:http://matplotlib.org/api/pyplot_summary.html?highlight=colormaps#matplotlib.pyplot.colormaps

imshow(X, cmap=cm.hot)

imshow(X)hot()jet()

The next 7 palettes are from theYorick scientific visualisationpackage, an evolution of the GIST package, both by David H. Munro:

Colormap	Description
gist_earth	mapmaker's colors from dark blue deep ocean to greenlowlands to brown highlands to white mountains
gist_gray	(identical togray)
gist_heat	sequential red-orange-yellow-white, to emulate blackbodyradiation from an iron bar as it grows hotter
gist_ncar	pseudo-spectral colormap from National Center for Atmospheric Research[2]
gist_rainbow	runs through the colors in spectral order at nearly constant intensity
gist_stern	"Stern special" color table from Interactive Data Language software
gist_yarg	(identical togray_r)

The following 34 colormaps are based on theColorBrewer color specifications and designs developed by Cynthia Brewer:

Diverging:

• BrBG
• PiYG
• PRGn
• PuOr
• RdBu
• RdGy
• RdYlBu
• RdYlGn
• Spectral

Sequential:

• Blues
• BuGn
• BuPu
• GnBu
• Greens
• Greys
• Oranges
• OrRd
• PuBu
• PuBuGn
• PuRd
• Purples
• RdPu
• Reds
• YlGn
• YlGnBu
• YlOrBr
• YlOrRd

Qualitative:

• Accent
• Dark2
• Paired
• Pastel1
• Pastel2
• Set1
• Set2
• Set3

Other miscellaneous schemes:

Colormap	Description
afmhot	sequential black-orange-yellow-white blackbodyspectrum, commonly used in atomic force microscopy
binary	(identical togray_r)
brg	blue-red-green
bwr	diverging blue-white-red
coolwarm	diverging blue-gray-red, meant to avoid issues with 3Dshading, color blindness, and ordering of colors[3]
CMRmap	"Default colormaps on color images often reproduce toconfusing grayscale images. The proposed colormapmaintains an aesthetically pleasing color image thatautomatically reproduces to a monotonic grayscale withdiscrete, quantifiable saturation levels."[4]
cubehelix	Unlike most other color schemes cubehelix was designedby D.A. Green to be monotonically increasing in termsof perceived brightness. Also, when printed on a blackand white postscript printer, the scheme results in agreyscale with monotonically increasing brightness.This color scheme is named cubehelix because the r,g,bvalues produced can be visualised as a squashed helixaround the diagonal in the r,g,b color cube.
gnuplot	gnuplot's traditional pm3d scheme(black-blue-red-yellow)
gnuplot2	sequential color printable as gray(black-blue-violet-yellow-white)
ocean	green-blue-white
rainbow	purple-blue-green-yellow-orange-red
seismic	diverging blue-white-red
terrain	mapmaker's colors, blue-green-yellow-brown-white,originally from IGOR Pro

Footnotes

Fromhttp://ab-initio.mit.edu/wiki/index.php/Color_tables_in_h5topng

autumn

red-orange-yellow color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

bluered

blue-white-red colorbar, useful for signed data in conjunction with -Z option to make white=0

bone

nearly grayscale (blackish to whitish) color map with a tinge of blue; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, which suggests using it to add an "electronic" look to grayscale images

colorcube

enhanced color-cube color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, basically designed to fill the RGB color space with an emphasis on a few pure colors

cool

cyan-magenta color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

copper

black-copper color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

dkbluered

dark blue-white-red colorbar, useful for signed data in conjunction with -Z option to make white=0; similar to bluered but shows a bit more dynamic range for the maxima/minima by darkening at the ends

flag

alternating red/white/blue/black color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

gray

simple black-to-white grayscale color bar

green

white-green color map; useful for translucent overlays with -A

hot

black-red-yellow-white color map, useful for nonnegative "intensity" data — based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, loosely resembling the color of heated object at increasing temperatures

hsv

red-yellow-green-cyan-blue-pink-magenta color map formed by changing the hue component in the HSV color space; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, who recommend it for used in plotting periodic data (that is, in which the maximum magnitude and the minimum magnitude are equivalent)

jet

blue-cyan-yellow-red color map (a variant of hsv; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, who based it on a fluid-jet simulation by NCSA

lines

oscillating color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab (based on the Matlab plot-line colors)

pink

pastel black-pink-white color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab, used for Sepia tone colorization

prism

repeating red-yellow-green-blue-purple-...-green color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

spring

magenta-yellow color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

summer

green-yellow color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

vga

Windows 4-bit color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

winter

blue-green color map; based on colormap of the same name in Matlab

yarg

simple white-to-black grayscale color bar (the reverse of gray, and almost equivalent to using -gray or gray with -r); this is useful to make contour-like overlays with the -A option because its transparency scale (black is transparent) is the opposite of gray (white is transparent)

yellow

white-yellow color map; useful for translucent overlays with -A

Fromhttp://www.mathworks.com/help/techdoc/ref/colormap.html

autumn

varies smoothly from red, through orange, to yellow.

bone

is a grayscale colormap with a higher value for the blue component. This colormap is useful for adding an "electronic" look to grayscale images.

colorcube

contains as many regularly spaced colors in RGB color space as possible, while attempting to provide more steps of gray, pure red, pure green, and pure blue.

cool

consists of colors that are shades of cyan and magenta. It varies smoothly from cyan to magenta.

copper

varies smoothly from black to bright copper.

flag

consists of the colors red, white, blue, and black. This colormap completely changes color with each index increment.

gray

returns a linear grayscale colormap.

hot

varies smoothly from black through shades of red, orange, and yellow, to white.

hsv

varies the hue component of the hue-saturation-value color model. The colors begin with red, pass through yellow, green, cyan, blue, magenta, and return to red. The colormap is particularly appropriate for displaying periodic functions. hsv(m) is the same as hsv2rgb([h ones(m,2)]) where h is the linear ramp, h = (0:m–1)'/m.

jet

ranges from blue to red, and passes through the colors cyan, yellow, and orange. It is a variation of the hsv colormap. The jet colormap is associated with an astrophysical fluid jet simulation from the National Center for Supercomputer Applications. See Examples.

lines

produces a colormap of colors specified by the axes ColorOrder property and a shade of gray.

pink

contains pastel shades of pink. The pink colormap provides sepia tone colorization of grayscale photographs.

prism

repeats the six colors red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and violet.

spring

consists of colors that are shades of magenta and yellow.

summer

consists of colors that are shades of green and yellow.

white

is an all white monochrome colormap.

winter

consists of colors that are shades of blue and green.