Custom colormap

Create custom colormaps from single or multiple RGB values.
2.8K Downloads
Updated 1 Jul 2013

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CMAP creates a custom colormap based on RGB values in the MATLAB format(values between 0-1). By specifying a base color, for example green: [0 1 0], CMAP creates a colormap with a specified number of colors around this value, and omits the darkest/lightest colors based on user input. Combine several CMAP calls to create multi-color maps as the example image shows.

Inputs:
- Base color
- Number of colors in the colormap (optional)
- Percentage cut of darkest colors (optional)
- Percentage cut of lightest colors (optional)

By downloading RGB triple of color name, version 2 (File ID: #24497), by Kristjan Jonasson, CMAP input may be specified as color names ('seagreen', 'darkred', etc.)

Example:
figure; pcolor([0:20;0:20]); cmap([0 1 0],10,20,5); colorbar
This gives a colormap in green tones, with 10 colors. 20% of the darkest colors and 5% of the lightest colors have been cut.

The attached sample figure (global mean sea surface temperature in July) was plotted using:
colormap([cmap('steelblue',50,10,0);flipud(cmap('orangered',50,10,0))]);

Cite As

Erik Kvaleberg (2025). Custom colormap (https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/42450-custom-colormap), MATLAB Central File Exchange. Retrieved .

MATLAB Release Compatibility
Created with R2012a
Compatible with any release
Platform Compatibility
Windows macOS Linux
Categories
Find more on Color and Styling in Help Center and MATLAB Answers
Acknowledgements

Inspired by: RGB triple of color name, version 2

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Version Published Release Notes
1.0.0.0