How to generate random colors in matplotlib?

Question

What\'s the trivial example of how to generate random colors for passing to plotting functions?

I\'m calling scatter inside a loop and want each plot a different col

Answer 1

For some time I was really annoyed by the fact that matplotlib doesn't generate colormaps with random colors, as this is a common need for segmentation and clustering tasks.

By just generating random colors we may end with some that are too bright or too dark, making visualization difficult. Also, usually we need the first or last color to be black, representing the background or outliers. So I've wrote a small function for my everyday work

Here's the behavior of it:

new_cmap = rand_cmap(100, type='bright', first_color_black=True, last_color_black=False, verbose=True)

Than you just use new_cmap as your colormap on matplotlib:

ax.scatter(X,Y, c=label, cmap=new_cmap, vmin=0, vmax=num_labels)

The code is here:

def rand_cmap(nlabels, type='bright', first_color_black=True, last_color_black=False, verbose=True):
    """
    Creates a random colormap to be used together with matplotlib. Useful for segmentation tasks
    :param nlabels: Number of labels (size of colormap)
    :param type: 'bright' for strong colors, 'soft' for pastel colors
    :param first_color_black: Option to use first color as black, True or False
    :param last_color_black: Option to use last color as black, True or False
    :param verbose: Prints the number of labels and shows the colormap. True or False
    :return: colormap for matplotlib
    """
    from matplotlib.colors import LinearSegmentedColormap
    import colorsys
    import numpy as np


    if type not in ('bright', 'soft'):
        print ('Please choose "bright" or "soft" for type')
        return

    if verbose:
        print('Number of labels: ' + str(nlabels))

    # Generate color map for bright colors, based on hsv
    if type == 'bright':
        randHSVcolors = [(np.random.uniform(low=0.0, high=1),
                          np.random.uniform(low=0.2, high=1),
                          np.random.uniform(low=0.9, high=1)) for i in xrange(nlabels)]

        # Convert HSV list to RGB
        randRGBcolors = []
        for HSVcolor in randHSVcolors:
            randRGBcolors.append(colorsys.hsv_to_rgb(HSVcolor[0], HSVcolor[1], HSVcolor[2]))

        if first_color_black:
            randRGBcolors[0] = [0, 0, 0]

        if last_color_black:
            randRGBcolors[-1] = [0, 0, 0]

        random_colormap = LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list('new_map', randRGBcolors, N=nlabels)

    # Generate soft pastel colors, by limiting the RGB spectrum
    if type == 'soft':
        low = 0.6
        high = 0.95
        randRGBcolors = [(np.random.uniform(low=low, high=high),
                          np.random.uniform(low=low, high=high),
                          np.random.uniform(low=low, high=high)) for i in xrange(nlabels)]

        if first_color_black:
            randRGBcolors[0] = [0, 0, 0]

        if last_color_black:
            randRGBcolors[-1] = [0, 0, 0]
        random_colormap = LinearSegmentedColormap.from_list('new_map', randRGBcolors, N=nlabels)

    # Display colorbar
    if verbose:
        from matplotlib import colors, colorbar
        from matplotlib import pyplot as plt
        fig, ax = plt.subplots(1, 1, figsize=(15, 0.5))

        bounds = np.linspace(0, nlabels, nlabels + 1)
        norm = colors.BoundaryNorm(bounds, nlabels)

        cb = colorbar.ColorbarBase(ax, cmap=random_colormap, norm=norm, spacing='proportional', ticks=None,
                                   boundaries=bounds, format='%1i', orientation=u'horizontal')

    return random_colormap

It's also on github: https://github.com/delestro/rand_cmap