Palettes

Overview

Graphs and maps allow the use of Colour, Symbol and Size palettes to add further dimensions to the visual inspection and interpretation of the geochemical data presented.

Version: 1.17+ (Apr 2019+)

Usage: Graph --> New palette --> New colour palette..., New shape palette... , New size palette...

How to use in practice

Palettes, to add a further dimension to the visual inspection and interpretation of the geochemical data presented on a graph, can be created on the basis of any data property in the project database. We can have either:

The respective new palette type creation windows are accessed from Graph --> New Palette --> Respective Palette type... or use the toolbar shortcut icon:

With all palettes there are 3 sample assignment types:

Assigned - a sample possesses a string/value matching a ‘shown’ assignment palette entry and is allocated the specified colour, symbol or size
Unassigned - a sample possesses a string/value matching the palette property but is either ‘hidden’ or not listed as an assigned palette entry. It is allocated the specified colour, symbol or size or is chosen not to be shown at all.
No Data - a sample does not possess a string/value and is allocated the specified colour, symbol or size or is chosen not to be shown at all.

All palettes also have the option to Only show legend entries with data i.e. show the legend labels only for palette entries which have been allocated to data on each graph to which they are applied.

The order in which the colour palette entries are arranged will determine the graph draw order. The order can be changed by drag and drop in palette editor (drag using the display colour swatch) :

Top of the assignment list - drawn to the front of the data
Bottom of the assignment list - drawn to the back of the data
Unassigned and No Data - always be drawn behind all data values

Once created Colour, Symbol and Size palettes will appear in the respective base artefact manager folders. When assigned to a graph a link to the original palette is created. Various options are available once a palette is applied to a graph. The three palette types are:

Colour - this is the master palette at present and defines the draw order of the points on the graph. For discrete data values colours can be set using the Auto Fill option which will allow to select from a range of predefined colour scales including a randomised set of 'visually distinct' colours based on a algorithm designed to create a range of colours that are distinct taking into account common forms of colour blindness. For continuous values users can also set the base colours using the Anchor colour picker - note the advanced tab can also set the transparency. By default the colours are interpolated between the anchors, and if desired a specific colour can be temporarily highlighted using the Override colour picker.
Shape - the shape palette can be used to select from a range of shapes, including half-filled symbols. By default symbols use a disk shape. Auto Fill will cycle the shapes through all available shapes in the palette, starting from the first selected shape. From v2.5 the shape palettes autofill order provides more distinct shapes, moving the triangles to the last position in the solid shapes.
Size - this is used to set the size of the symbol used. This can be used to make all the symbols bigger / smaller. The largest symbol size is 32 pixels square, the smallest 8 pixels. The symbol size can be set by a dropdown.

Palettes can be exported from artefact manager as a saved template for use in future projects (as long as a similar naming schema / data QC process has been used in the different projects).

Palettes are also used to define groupings, e.g. by lithology type, for calculating stratified statistics.