What it does
Matteo Niccoli’s MyCarta palette collection supplies colormaps for structure maps and geophysical attributes. It combines RGB tables, specialist application formats and explanations of the palettes’ lightness and hue choices.
Choose the table range that your application expects: the collection offers RGB CSV values scaled from 0 to 1 or from 0 to 255. The cubeYF palette is also described as a 256-sample RGB table. Its companion cube1 adds a reddish high-lightness end, trading some perceptual consistency for stronger hue separation.
The download list includes Geosoft .tbl, SMT Kingdom .clb, Petrel .alut and Surfer .clr formats, among others. Proprietary-format bundles have an .odt extension; rename the downloaded bundle to .zip before unpacking it. For Hampson-Russell HRS-9, the import route runs through the colour-key and histogram editor, followed by naming the palette and saving it to the project list.
Some instructions are tied to older software. OpendTect guidance refers to release 4.4 and earlier releases, and includes an alternative import method after the first method failed for a contributor.
The collection separates structure-map palettes from recommendations for cyclic phase and dip-azimuth data. Those recommendations point to Peter Kovesi’s CET-C2 and CET-C2s, rather than presenting them as MyCarta originals. The seismic-amplitude section is still marked forthcoming.
Strengths
- RGB tables are offered in both normalized and 8-bit ranges.
- Application-specific formats come with concrete import routes.
Watch out for
- Some import instructions target older application releases.
- The seismic-amplitude section does not yet provide its promised palettes.
Best for
- Geoscientists selecting and importing colormaps for mapped attributes.
Sources
- Color Palettes | MyCarta (Oct 28, 2026)
- Perceptual rainbow palette - the goodies | MyCarta (Oct 28, 2026)
- About | MyCarta (Oct 28, 2026)
- Why I replaced my Creative Commons license with Konomark | MyCarta (Oct 28, 2026)