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Are there any color scheme generators that can simulate color blindness and export these results to a color palette file or generate a css stylesheet ? I've used Gpick and was recently introduced to this website but I'm really after a desktop application (for when I'm not connected to the Internet) that can generate color schemes.

Are there any applications that can do that?

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3 Answers

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I've used Color Oracle before. It's written in Java and runs very well on Ubuntu. Even though installing it is slightly unintuitive.

enter image description here enter image description here

To run it,

  • Download the Linux version, and extract the archive somewhere

  • Right click the resulting .jar file, select Properties, Permissions, Allow executing file as program

  • Right click it again, then choose Run with OpenJDK Java 6 Runtime

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Thanks, although the problem with this is that it doesn't actually generate a colour scheme and can't export it to a color pallet file – hellocatfood May 31 '11 at 15:40
For some reason, Color Oracle is giving me a blank screen on Ubuntu 12.04. It has the "Deuteranopia" label overlay, but everything behind it is a muted grey. – Marcus Downing Sep 19 '12 at 15:49
up vote 6 down vote

Compiz has a colour filter plugin. It allows you to transform any colour into another and it sounds like it might be perfect for highlighting colour blindness. What is instantly better than a browser plugin is that you can apply this to any window or even the entire screen.

You'll want to install compizconfig-settings-manager before you do anything else. And one note before you enable it, you'll probably need to change the keys because they'll conflict with other plugins. The combination in the screenshot below worked for me.

If you can't find it, make sure compiz-plugins-main is installed.

It seems like deuteranopia and protanopia are the filters you want. Just delete the ones you don't need and you'll be able to switch between the modes you want very easily. If you want to make any changes to the existing filters, look in /usr/share/compiz/colorfilter/data/filters/

Good luck!

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This is excellent! – Stefano Palazzo♦ May 31 '11 at 8:24
Thanks! Though the only problem with this approach is that I then can't export the colors to a gimp or css color palette – hellocatfood May 31 '11 at 8:49
@hellocatfood Hmmmm. It might sound silly but you could take a screenshot. I've just used nanoshot (others may work too) and it does preserve the altered colours. Hook that back into gpick's "Palette from image" tool and you're away. – Oli♦ May 31 '11 at 9:30
If I could work out how to use gpick, you might even be able to capture colours interactively while you have the colour filter turned on. – Oli♦ May 31 '11 at 9:31
@Oli it's not an appropriate solution as this doesn't actually generate a color scheme. Gpick and most other color scheme generators generate schemes based on an input color. So, I could use your method to generate a single color that is safe for a type of color blindness but the colour scheme generated from that colour can not be guaranteed to be appropriate, especially if the scheme generated doesn't contain complementary colours – hellocatfood May 31 '11 at 15:33
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up vote 0 down vote accepted

Based on this feature request, colour blindness simulation has been added to Gpick.

  1. In order to use it you have to first compile the latest source code from the Google Code website
  2. Once installed, launch the program and click on Edit > Edit Transformations
  3. In the 'Transformations' dialog enable 'Enabled' check box.
  4. Add 'Color vision deficiency' transformation to the list by clicking "Add" button. enter image description here
  5. Double click on the added transformation to edit its properties. enter image description here
  6. Click OK when finished

From then all of the work done in gpick will take the specified color blindness into effect

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