Palette Editor icon

Palette Editor

A palette is an ordered set of colors and associated method of interpolation.

The Palette Editor allows creating custom palettes and choosing a palette from numerous preset options and any previously created custom palettes. See also: the Color Editor, background

There are several ways to start the Palette Editor, a tool in the Utilities category. In addition, clicking a palette well (analogous to a color well but rectangular rather than square, such as used for a gradient in the Background preferences) opens the Palette Editor.

Interpolation options:

The Presets section provides access to many built-in color schemes. The schemes were copied from ColorBrewer on May 19, 2011, and should be credited as follows:
Brewer, Cynthia A., 2011. https://colorbrewer2.org, accessed 19 May 2011.
The preset schemes are categorized by Type based on the data they were designed to represent: The Custom section provides a user-specified number of color wells (up to 12) for defining a new palette. Clicking a color well brings up the Color Editor for interactive color definition. The colors together with the method of interpolation comprise a palette. Palettes can be named, saved, and later retrieved from the pulldown list indicated by the black inverted triangle near the top of the dialog. A built-in palette (Chimera default or any of the presets) cannot be overwritten or deleted, but it can be saved to a new name. Custom palettes are saved in the Chimera preferences file, and are only updated with any changes when Save, Save As, or Delete is used.

The Help button brings up this manual page in a browser window. Close dismisses the Palette Editor.


UCSF Computer Graphics Laboratory / June 2011