excolor.utils

excolor.utils.get_color_name(color)[source]

Finds the closest color name from the rich color dataset for a given color.

This function converts the input color to RGB, then uses a vectorized numpy operation to efficiently find the color with the minimum Euclidean distance in the RGB space from a pre-compiled list of over 9,000 colors.

Parameters:

color (Any) – The input color in any format supported by to_rgb255.

Returns:

The closest matching color name.

Return type:

str

excolor.utils.get_colors(cmap, n=None, exclude_extreme=True)[source]

Extracts colors from a colormap with optional sampling and filtering.

This function extracts colors from a colormap, with options to: - Specify the number of colors to extract - Exclude extreme (very dark/light) colors - Handle both qualitative and continuous colormaps appropriately

Parameters:

  • cmap (str or matplotlib.colors.Colormap) – Colormap name or instance

  • n (int, optional) – Sumpling number of colors to extract. If None: - For qualitative colormaps: uses all colors - For continuous colormaps: uses 10 colors (9 for divergent)

  • exclude_extreme (bool, default=True) – Filtering out the darkest and lightest colors from the output. This is useful for continuous colormaps to avoid pure black/white.

Returns:

List of colors in hex format, sampled from the colormap

Return type:

list of str

Examples

>>> get_colors('viridis', n=5)  # Get 5 colors from viridis
>>> get_colors('Set1')  # Get all colors from qualitative colormap
>>> get_colors('RdBu', exclude_extreme=False)  # Include extremes
excolor.utils.interpolate_colors(c, n=5)[source]

Creates a smooth gradient of colors by interpolating between input colors.

This function takes a list of colors and generates a new list with n colors by creating a smooth gradient between the input colors using linear interpolation.

Parameters:

  • c (list) – List of input colors in any matplotlib-compatible format (hex, name, etc.)

  • n (int, default=5) – Number of colors to generate in the output list

Returns:

List of n colors in hex format, forming a smooth gradient between the input colors

Return type:

list of str

Examples

>>> interpolate_colors(['#FF0000', '#00FF00'], n=3)
['#FF0000', '#808000', '#00FF00']
>>> interpolate_colors(['red', 'blue'], n=4)
['#FF0000', '#800080', '#0000FF']