Scene Colors Reference

Color Bar Node Properties

Color Map

Selects colors to indicate values from lowest to highest. This property lets you customize the use of colors in the scalar scene. For a list of the pre-defined choices, see Pre-Defined Color Maps.

Levels

Sets the number of levels into which the range of data should be divided. Higher numbers produce finer blends between values. The default setting is 32.

The change is visible in the display for both the bar and the visible parts.

32 levels (default number)	64 levels

Width

Controls the width of the color bar. The number is a fraction of the display width; 1.0 equals the full width of the display.

Font

Sets the font of the color bar text.

Background

Activates or deactivates the color bar background.

Background Color

Controls the color of the background. The property customizer executes the define color action. See Defining Colors.

Shadow

Activates a shadow effect for the text of the color bar.

Reverse

Reverses the sequence of the selected colormap (for example, red to blue rather than blue to red).

Text Position

Sets the position of the text relative to the color bar:

• Preceding—the text appears before (above) the color bar.
• Succeeding—the text appears after (below) the color bar.

To adjust the size of the entire text, resize the bar in the display.

Height

Sets the height of the color bar and its label.

Title Height

Specifies a height for the title (field function label) of the color bar relative to the display height. The value is a fraction of the height of the display window, where 1.0 is the full height.

The title of the color bar comes from the name of the selected scalar or vector.

Label Height

Specifies a height for the numeric labels of the color bar relative to the display height. The value is a fraction of the height of the display window, where 1.0 is the full height.

Orientation

Defines orientation of the color bar, horizontal or vertical.

Position

Specifies the position in the display of the visualization display as X and Y coordinates from 0 to 1.

Visible

Shows or hides the color bar.

Scale Mode

Activates a logarithmic scale mode for the color bar.

This feature works only if the function field ranges are positive or negative. If the ranges cross zero, then the display and the bar are disabled, showing the geometry model colored by default colors.

• Linear—uses linear scaling.
• Log10—uses logarithmic scaling. The logarithmic scale is helpful if you have a wide range of values to display.

Text Color

Controls the color of the text. The property customizer executes the define color action. See Defining Colors.

Opacity

Adjusts the transparency of the color bar. The settings range from 0.0 (invisible) to 1.0 (opaque). This property allows you to show the bar as an overlay in front of the model.

Label Format

Defines the numeric formatting of the numbers that are displayed along the color bar. The property customizer activates a dialog with interactive controls.

Alternatively, text elements that can be entered here are identical to those described in the section What Is the Number Format?

Ramp Type

Sets the shape of the table ramp to either linear, S-curve, or square-root:

• Linear—specifies a linear ramp.
• S-curve—uses the S-curve, which tails off gradually at each end:
  $$y=\frac{\sin \left((x-1/2)\pi \right)+1}{2}$$
• Sqrt—uses the square root, $y=\sqrt{x}$ .

Number of Labels

Controls the number of value labels along the color bar.

Pre-Defined Color Maps

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ includes a set of pre-defined color maps for you to use in controlling the display of colors in scenes.

Color Map Categories

The pre-defined color maps can be aligned with at least one of the categories below:

• Perceptual
  • Color maps in this category have well ordered colors and are nearly or fully colorblind accessible.
• Qualitative
  • Use these color maps to create high impact visualizations. Some of these maps are based largely on saturated colors and are intended to deliver strong visual aesthetics.
• Divergent
  • Use these color maps to highlight differences across a scalar range. Some maps are effective at highlighting small differences while other maps are designed to highlight large differences in range.
• Specialty

  • These color maps are recognizable and designed for specific uses. The land elevation (or land sea elevation) maps are based on geographical surface elevation contours, for example.

    In addition to the color maps listed here, which are designed for scene displays, other pre-defined color maps are designed for bubble plots. For details, see the description of the Color Map property in Bubble Plot Objects Reference.

Color Maps

In the table below, each of the pre-defined color maps is applied to the same visualization scene.

blue-red (qualitative)
blue-red balanced (qualitative)
blue-red bright (qualitative)
blue-red-band (qualitative)
blue-red-highpass (qualitative)
blue-red-lowpass (qualitative)
blue-yellow-red
casting (specialty map)
cool-warm (qualitative)
cool-warm-band (qualitative)
gray-darkred (qualitative)
grayscale (perceptual)
green-mauve (perceptual)
high-contrast (qualitative)
indigo-white (qualitative)
Kelvin temperature (specialty)
land elevation (specialty)
land sea elevation (specialty)
orchid-green (perceptual)
purple-red (qualitative)
purple-red (large difference) (divergent)
purple-red basic (large difference) (divergent)
radiation spectrum (divergent)
red-blue (small difference) (divergent)
red-green (small difference) (divergent)
red-purple desaturated ends (qualitative)
spectrum (qualitative)
thermal (specialty)
tropical (perceptual)
turbo (perceptual)
water (perceptual)
white-pink (qualitative)
white-red (qualitative)

Color Map Dialog Controls

The Edit Color Map dialog exposes several properties for the color spectrum and control points along it.

Preview Mode

Controls how the dialog previews your changes.

• On Change—shows the effect as soon as you complete a change.
• Manual—shows the effect after you complete a change and click Preview.
• Continuous—shows the effect as you are making a change.

Color Space

Sets the color space that is used for interpolation.

• RGB (Red, Green, and Blue)—the color model that is commonly used in video displays.
• HSV (Hue, Saturation, and Value)—works like mixtures of paint.
• Lab—the CIE-L*a*b system.
• Diverging—involves a special mode where colors pass through white when interpolating between two saturated colors.
• HSV-Wrapped—uses HSV, but takes the shortest path in Hue (going back through 0 if that is the shortest way around the hue circle).

Color Maps Node Actions

Use this pop-up menu to create color maps.

New

Adds a new color map to the Color Maps node.