Palette gallery

This gallery is generated from the package’s offline registry, so it stays in sync with the colors returned by sc_palette(). Hover over a qualitative swatch to see its hexadecimal value. Status groups put recommended starting points first while keeping compatibility collections visible.

19registered palettes

9qualitative

6sequential

3diverging

1cyclic

Recommended palettes

okabe_itoqualitative

khroma · 8 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · condition · highlight

tol_brightqualitative

khroma · 7 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · condition · highlight

tol_vibrantqualitative

khroma · 7 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · condition · highlight

tol_mutedqualitative

khroma · 9 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · lineage · heatmap_annotation

tol_medium_contrastqualitative

khroma · 6 colors · recommended
condition · sample · highlight

ditto40qualitative

dittoSeq · 40 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · heatmap_annotation

chromaticqualitative

scChromatic · 40 colors · recommended
cell_identity · sample · lineage · heatmap_annotation

chromatic_balancediverging

scChromatic · recommended
signed_score

viridissequential

viridisLite · recommended
expression · pseudotime · qc

cividissequential

viridisLite · recommended
expression · pseudotime · qc

magmasequential

viridisLite · recommended
expression · pseudotime · qc

These palettes are the primary framework-neutral starting points. Qualitative palettes are fixed sequences; request extend = "generate" only when more colors are needed.

Compatibility collections

glasbey32qualitative

Polychrome · 32 colors · compatibility
cell_identity · sample · heatmap_annotation

polychrome36qualitative

Polychrome · 36 colors · compatibility
cell_identity · sample · heatmap_annotation

d3_rainbowcyclic

D3 Scale Chromatic · compatibility
cell_identity · sample · condition · lineage · heatmap_annotation

d3_coolsequential

D3 Scale Chromatic · compatibility
expression · pseudotime · qc

scico_batlowsequential

scico · compatibility
expression · pseudotime · qc

scico_lajollasequential

scico · compatibility
expression · pseudotime · qc

scico_vikdiverging

scico · compatibility
signed_score

scico_brocdiverging

scico · compatibility
signed_score

Compatibility palettes preserve explicitly named external collections, including licensed Polychrome and scico_* palettes, and the d3_rainbow and d3_cool schemes used by CELLXGENE. d3_rainbow reproduces CELLXGENE’s categorical fallback, but its colors depend on both the requested count and category order. It is therefore a visual-compatibility option, not a stable label-to-color contract, and sc_color_map() intentionally excludes it. Request it with sc_palette("d3_rainbow", n) or a discrete scale_*_sc_d().

d3_cool provides a smooth continuous gradient for visual compatibility. Its exact 100 D3 source bins are available with sc_palette("d3_cool", 100, selection = "source"). CELLXGENE assigns points through those bins in reverse order, so the default priority order and the R continuous scale run from low green to high purple; the smooth R scale preserves the appearance rather than identical upstream bin boundaries.

For signed values, pass the data midpoint to the scale so rescaling is centered correctly:

scale_color_sc_c("chromatic_balance", midpoint = 0)

## <ScaleContinuous>
##  Range:  
##  Limits:    0 --    1

High-cardinality palettes are perceptually optimized or compatibility collections, not guarantees of universal color-vision-deficiency safety. Use sc_palette_audit() and combine color with labels, shapes, facets, or other encodings when distinctions matter.