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Items in the Palette menu set the colors used to render the DEM. Palettes define the hypsographic coloring for the DEM, which is the color applied to the DEM as a function of elevation.

"Color map" files from previous versions of MacDEM are no longer recognized. They must be re-entered into the Palette editor with their RGB values scaled by 100.

Renders all elevations in a uniform gray. No terrain features are visible if Lighting is off, though coasts are visible if a Zero Elevation Color is selected. (This might be useful for creating masks.) The elevation scale window will appear all white when this palette is selected.

Maps elevations to a gray scale; the lowest elevation maps to black, the highest to white.

Maps elevations to a gray scale; the lowest elevation maps to dark gray, the highest to white.

Maps elevations to a green-to-yellow color scale.

Maps elevations to a green, brown, yellow, white color scale.

Maps elevations to a dark blue, light blue, green, brown, yellow, white color scale. This palette uses absolute elevations; if a DEM has a limited range of elevations, only the colors corresponding to those elevations will be visible. Negative elevations map to the blue part of the scale, typically to represent areas below sea level.

Maps elevations to a user-defined color scale by applying the most recently loaded custom palette. This option is disabled until a custom palette is loaded or created by editing a palette.

Opens a dialog allowing you to edit the color palette.

Palette Editor Dialog

The Elevation column must be in descending order (higher elevations at the top, lower elevations at the bottom). The elevations can either be all relative or all absolute. Relative elevation values are scaled internally by MacDEM to fit the range of elevations of each DEM. Absolute elevation values are not scaled but are used as-is. MacDEM assumes a palette is relative if all of its elevation values are in the range 0.0 to 1.0. If any elevation is outside this range MacDEM treats the elevations as absolute.

The Red %, Green %, Blue % values must be in the range 0 to 100, where 0 is the darkest and 100 is the brightest. Using the color button will let you use the standard color picker to select a color for the current row (the row with the cursor).

MacDEM linearly interpolates colors between the color entries. To get bands of constant color two entries with the same color at different heights are required.

If a DEM has elevations below or above the range of an absolute palette, MacDEM uses the colors from the corresponding end of the palette.