Hello, I am horrified by the new default yellow color scheme in which Mathematica 10 produces 3D plots. Is there a simple way to revert to the old default color theme used in old versions?
You can choose to edit the init.m at C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Mathematica\Kernel\init.m, and insert the code,
SetOptions[ Plot3D, Background -> White]
This causes the Background option of the stated command to be initialized to “White”, for when you start a fresh Mathematica session.
Dear Isaac, I have modified my Kernel\init.m file but your suggestion did not do what I wanted. Let me write a simple example:
Plot3D[Exp[-x^2] + Exp[-y ^2], {x, -5, 5}, {y, -5, 5}]
If you execute this code, you will get white background and yellow-reddish surface. In previous versions of Mathematica the surface color was a kind of pale blue. In other words, I do not want to set the background to white, which it already is, I want to avoid the yellow coloring of the plotted surfaces. Please compare the output of the above code from Mathematica 10 and Mathematica 8/9:
I misunderstood. Try the following in your document prior to the Plot3D statement.
SetOptions[ Plot3D(*Or whichever plot you desire*),ColorFunction -> "Rainbow"(*One of many options*)];
To see all the available ColorFunction options, evaluate (in a notebook),
ColorData["Gradients"]
You may try them all and see which you prefer. When you find one you like, you can edit the init.m and insert the SetOptions command therein. I tested the above satisfactorily with Mathematica 10 on the programming cloud.
Dear Isaac, none of the 51 options available returns color output that matches the one of old Mathematica versions. My question is not how I can play with the colors, but how to get exactly the same color function as in the old Mathematica.
Below is the “Rainbow” output.
I did try all of the following 51, just to verify that the color function used by default in old versions of Mathematica is not one of them: “AlpineColors”, “Aquamarine”, “ArmyColors”, “AtlanticColors”, “AuroraColors”, “AvocadoColors”, “BeachColors”, “BlueGreenYellow”, “BrassTones”, “BrightBands”, “BrownCyanTones”, “CandyColors”, “CherryTones”, “CMYKColors”, “CoffeeTones”, “DarkBands”, “DarkRainbow”, “DarkTerrain”, “DeepSeaColors”, “FallColors”, “FruitPunchColors”, “FuchsiaTones”, “GrayTones”, “GrayYellowTones”, “GreenBrownTerrain”, “GreenPinkTones”, “IslandColors”, “LakeColors”, “LightTemperatureMap”, “LightTerrain”, “MintColors”, “NeonColors”, “Pastel”, “PearlColors”, “PigeonTones”, “PlumColors”, “Rainbow”, “RedBlueTones”, “RedGreenSplit”, “RoseColors”, “RustTones”, “SandyTerrain”, “SiennaTones”, “SolarColors”, “SouthwestColors”, “StarryNightColors”, “SunsetColors”, “TemperatureMap”, “ThermometerColors”, “ValentineTones”, WatermelonColors"
Try
Plot3D[Exp[-x^2] + Exp[-y ^2], {x, -5, 5}, {y, -5, 5},
PlotTheme -> {"Classic", "ClassicLights"}]
and take a look at this thread in Mathematica StackExchange for some more discussion:
Dear David, thanks a lot! Your proposal works.
Before I post my question to the forum I actually tried to change the ColorTheme guessing that it should be the “Classic” one, yet the result was strange:
Plot3D[Exp[-x^2] + Exp[-y^2], {x, -5, 5}, {y, -5, 5}, PlotTheme -> {"Classic"}]
However, in your proposal, you add extra argument “ClassicLights”, which indeed returns image that seems identical to one produced by old version of Mathematica:
Plot3D[Exp[-x^2] + Exp[-y^2], {x, -5, 5}, {y, -5, 5}, PlotTheme -> {"Classic", "ClassicLights"}]
Yes, I went down the road you did as well and didn’t understand why I still got the golden version. I knew from previous things I’d read that it was possible and so finally did a search of StackExchange which turned up the “ClassicLights” portion. As far as I can tell this is not documented anywhere in the Documentation Center.
I agree that the documentation of new Mathematica 10 is terrible. I have visited the online documentation and have tried finding an image of a plot using the Classic colors with the hope that I can find the correct code for solving the coloring problem. And easy enough I have found multiple images using the Classic colors, but when I executed the code in Mathematica 10 it produced yellow plots. So, I realized that Mathematica team maybe updated the texts of the documentation but did not change the images that they had produced using old version of Mathematica. For consistency, I think they should re-run all the codes in the new documentation online and produce new image outputs from Mathematica 10.
Well, I don’t think that the documentation is terrible–I think actually it is one of the best written documentation systems that I’ve encountered. That said, there are some places where additional information could be added. And I suspect you are right that the automatic updating of the notebooks that correspond to the documentation system sometimes misses a needed pass. Probably it can be helpful to point these instances out to the Wolfram folks via their feedback form: http://www.wolfram.com/support/contact/email/
Dear David, I wanted to clarify a bit my previous point because it was misunderstood. I wrote “documentation of new Mathematica 10” and I was trying to stress on the “new” in that expression. Mathematica 9 has nice “old” documentation center, which provides good and consistent information. When an old user goes to the new documentation center online of version 10, he is probably not looking for the content that Wolfram team carried over from the old documentation 9, rather he expects to find additional instructions on what is “new” in this new version 10. In this sense I think Wolfram team has done some advertising on what is new, but have not done a great job in documenting it.
Yes, I think that many of the new functionalities (Cloud deployment, Entities and similar things,…) could use a good deal more detailed documentation and helpful detailed examples. This is especially needed to get people launched into making significant use of all the new things.
Danko Georgiev: How did you discover the value “ClassicLights” optional 2nd entry for PlotTheme? I ask because I find no mention of it on the doc page for PlotTheme. And, although it may be buried there, I didn’t find it on the doc page for Plot3D, either.
Hi Murray,
It was actually me who found the “ClassicLights” and it is not documented in the Documentation Center as far as I can tell (see the discussion above). I found reference to it in the Mathematica StackExchange thread that I link to above. Here it is again:
Best,
David
David, sorry, I overlooked your citation of the mathematica.stackexchange item, and I didn’t recall having seen it there. Thanks for your digging!