Creating a new color spectrum

Abaqus/CAE provides seven predefined color spectrums that you can use to customize the colors in a contour plot. If you prefer a different set of colors or a different arrangement, you can create a new color spectrum and apply its colors to the contour plot.

See Also
Understanding contour plotting
Customizing a contour plot
Customizing contour colors
Coloring elements with no results

Context:

Creating and editing a color spectrum are similar processes. When you create a new color spectrum, Abaqus/CAE populates the Create Spectrum dialog box with the contents of the last color spectrum that you either modified or applied to the contour plot. If you had not yet modified a spectrum or created a contour plot in your session, Abaqus/CAE populates a new color spectrum with the colors in the predefined Rainbow color spectrum. You can then edit this new color spectrum by adding, modifying, moving, and deleting colors to achieve the content and arrangement that you want.

A spectrum must contain at least two colors and can contain as many colors as you want to include. In many situations the number of colors in your selected color spectrum will not match the number of contour intervals, so Abaqus/CAE cannot perform a one-to-one assignment of colors to contour intervals. In this case Abaqus/CAE performs one of the following actions:

  • If your spectrum has more colors than the current number of contour intervals, Abaqus/CAE samples colors from the spectrum to create the contour plot. For example, when a spectrum contains 24 colors and only 12 intervals are selected, the contour plot will display every other color in the spectrum.

  • If your spectrum has fewer colors than the current number of contour intervals, Abaqus/CAE interpolates between spectrum colors to determine additional colors to use for the contour intervals. All user-defined color spectrums follow an HSV interpolation scheme, while the Red to blue predefined spectrum follows an RGB interpolation scheme. This difference means that the Red to blue predefined spectrum and a user-defined spectrum could contain the same two colors, red and blue, but behave differently because their interpolation schemes would create different intermediate interval values. In general, HSV interpolation conforms more closely to human intuition than RGB interpolation does.

Color spectrums are session-specific definitions; therefore, they are available for use in any viewport during your session but are not saved to the output database (.odb). You can edit the colors and arrangement of any color spectrum, and you can rename, copy, or delete any user-created color spectrum. Abaqus/CAE does not allow you to rename or delete the seven predefined color spectrums. Abaqus/CAE provides access to color spectrums both from the main menu bar and from the Results Tree.

  1. Locate the Create Spectrum dialog box.

    From the main menu bar, select ToolsSpectrumCreate.

    The Create Spectrum dialog box appears.

  2. Specify the Name for this new color spectrum.
  3. To insert a new color into the color spectrum:

    1. Highlight the color in the color spectrum that you want to precede or follow the color that you add.

    2. Click Insert Before or Insert After to add a new color in the indicated location.

      The Select Color dialog box opens.

    3. Choose a color, and click OK to close the Select Color dialog box.

    Abaqus/CAE adds the new color in the selected location.

  4. To change one of the colors in the color spectrum, double-click the color and select a new color from the Select Color dialog box that appears.
  5. To move a color within the color spectrum, highlight the color and click either Move Up or Move Down to move the color one step in the selected direction.
  6. To delete a color from the spectrum, highlight the color and click Delete.
  7. Continue adding, changing, moving, and deleting colors until the color spectrum contains the colors you want in the desired order.
  8. Click OK.

    Abaqus/CAE adds the new color spectrum, making it available for use in customizing contour plots.