Question

I need to draw n different objects on a chart. I want to pick a different color for each of them to make them distinguishable. The objects will be moved around, so I cannot count on ideas like “four color theorem” to assign same color to non-adjacent items. So far my problem call for up to 20 different items.

Is there a good way to pick n different colors to make them as distinguishable from each other as possible?

Answer 1

First of all, I have since changed the design so that it is not important to use 20 distinct colors. The default palette of 10 colors show up quite well.

Secondly, I’ve found an answer to my own question. The thing I want to do is called Color scale for categorical coding. Here is a paper that propose a method to do it

An algorithm for generating color scales for both categorical and ordinal coding – Breslow – 2009 – Color Research & Application – Wiley Online Library
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/col.20559/full

I’m going to give the paper a glance. It is probably too technical than what I prepare to do.