block by mbostock 11337491

Rainbow Luminance

Full Screen

The HSL rainbow (all hues at 100% saturation and 50% lightness) has highly variable luminance: we perceive some parts of the rainbow, such as between yellow and cyan, as significantly brighter than other parts of the rainbow. This, along with a lack of perceptual uniformity, makes the rainbow color scale unsuitable for visualization. Use the Lab or HCL color space instead.

index.html