Random color generator

Question

Given this function, I want to replace the color with a random color generator.

document.overlay = GPolyline.fromEncoded({
    color: "#0000FF",
    weight: 10,
    points: encoded_points,
    zoomFactor: 32,
    levels: encoded_levels,
    numLevels: 4
});

How can I do it?

Answer 1

Array.prototype.reduce makes it very clean.

["r","g","b"].reduce(function(res) {
    return res + ("0"+~~(Math.random()*256).toString(16)).slice(-2)
}, "#")

---

Needs a shim for old browsers.

Answer 2

This function goes above and beyond other answers in two ways:

It attempts to generate colors as distinct as possible by finding which color out of 20 tries has the farthest euclidian distance from the others in the HSV cone

It allows you to restrict the hue, saturation, or value range, but still attempts to pick colors as distinct as possible within that range.

It's not super efficient, but for reasonable values (who could even pick apart 100 colors easily?) It's fast enough.

See JSFiddle

  /**
   * Generates a random palette of HSV colors.  Attempts to pick colors
   * that are as distinct as possible within the desired HSV range.
   *
   * @param {number}    [options.numColors=10] - the number of colors to generate
   * @param {number[]}  [options.hRange=[0,1]] - the maximum range for generated hue
   * @param {number[]}  [options.sRange=[0,1]] - the maximum range for generated saturation
   * @param {number[]}  [options.vRange=[0,1]] - the maximum range for generated value
   * @param {number[][]}[options.exclude=[[0,0,0],[0,0,1]]] - colors to exclude
   * 
   * @returns {number[][]} an array of HSV colors (each HSV color 
   * is a [hue, saturation, value] array)
   */
  function randomHSVPalette(options) {
    function random(min, max) {
      return min + Math.random() * (max - min);
    } 

    function HSVtoXYZ(hsv) {
      var h = hsv[0];
      var s = hsv[1];
      var v = hsv[2];
      var angle = h * Math.PI * 2;
      return [Math.sin(angle) * s * v,
              Math.cos(angle) * s * v,
              v];
    }

    function distSq(a, b) {
      var dx = a[0] - b[0];
      var dy = a[1] - b[1];
      var dz = a[2] - b[2];
      return dx * dx + dy * dy + dz * dz;
    }

    if (!options) {
      options = {};
    }

    var numColors = options.numColors || 10;
    var hRange = options.hRange || [0, 1];
    var sRange = options.sRange || [0, 1];
    var vRange = options.vRange || [0, 1];
    var exclude = options.exclude || [[0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 1]];

    var points = exclude.map(HSVtoXYZ);
    var result = [];

    while (result.length < numColors) {
      var bestHSV;
      var bestXYZ;
      var bestDist = 0;
      for (var i = 0; i < 20; i++) {
        var hsv = [random(hRange[0], hRange[1]), random(sRange[0], sRange[1]), random(vRange[0], vRange[1])];
        var xyz = HSVtoXYZ(hsv);
        var minDist = 10;
        points.forEach(function(point) {
          minDist = Math.min(minDist, distSq(xyz, point));
        });
        if (minDist > bestDist) {
          bestHSV = hsv;
          bestXYZ = xyz;
          bestDist = minDist;
        }
      }
      points.push(bestXYZ);
      result.push(bestHSV);
    }

    return result;
  }

  function HSVtoRGB(hsv) {
    var h = hsv[0];
    var s = hsv[1];
    var v = hsv[2];

    var i = ~~(h * 6);
    var f = h * 6 - i;
    var p = v * (1 - s);
    var q = v * (1 - f * s);
    var t = v * (1 - (1 - f) * s);
    v = ~~(255 * v);
    p = ~~(255 * p);
    q = ~~(255 * q); 
    t = ~~(255 * t);
    switch (i % 6) {
      case 0: return [v, t, p];
      case 1: return [q, v, p];
      case 2: return [p, v, t];
      case 3: return [p, q, v];
      case 4: return [t, p, v];
      case 5: return [v, p, q];
    }
  }

  function RGBtoCSS(rgb) {
    var r = rgb[0];
    var g = rgb[1];
    var b = rgb[2];
    var rgb = (r << 16) + (g << 8) + b;
    return '#' + ('000000' + rgb.toString(16)).slice(-6);
  }

Answer 3

Here's a twist on the solution provided by @Anatoliy.

I needed to generate only light colours (for backgrounds), so I went with three letter (#AAA) format:

function get_random_color() {
    var letters = 'ABCDE'.split('');
    var color = '#';
    for (var i=0; i<3; i++ ) {
        color += letters[Math.floor(Math.random() * letters.length)];
    }
    return color;
}

Answer 4

The top voted comment of the top answer suggests that Martin Ankerl's approach is better than random hex numbers, and although I haven't improved on Ankerl's methodology, I have successfully translated it to JavaScript. I figured I'd post an additional answer to this already mega-sized SO thread because the top answer has another comment linking to a Gist with the JS implementation of Ankerl's logic and that link is broken (404). If I had the reputation, I would have simply commented the jsbin link I created.

// adapted from
// http://jsfiddle.net/Mottie/xcqpF/1/light/
const rgb2hex = (rgb) => {
 return (rgb && rgb.length === 3) ? "#" +
  ("0" + parseInt(rgb[0],10).toString(16)).slice(-2) +
  ("0" + parseInt(rgb[1],10).toString(16)).slice(-2) +
  ("0" + parseInt(rgb[2],10).toString(16)).slice(-2) : '';
}

// next two methods converted from Ruby to JS
// soured from http://martin.ankerl.com/2009/12/09/how-to-create-random-colors-programmatically/

// # HSV values in [0..1[
// # returns [r, g, b] values from 0 to 255
const hsv_to_rgb = (h, s, v) => {
  const h_i = Math.floor(h*6)
  const f = h*6 - h_i
  const p = v * (1 - s)
  const q = v * (1 - (f * s))
  const t = v * (1 - (1 - f) * s)
  let r, g, b
  switch(h_i){
    case(0):
      [r, g, b] = [v, t, p]
      break
    case(1):
      [r, g, b] = [q, v, p]
      break
    case(2):
      [r, g, b] = [p, v, t]
      break
    case(3):
      [r, g, b] = [p, q, v]
      break
    case(4):
      [r, g, b] = [t, p, v]
      break
    case(5):
      [r, g, b] = [v, p, q]
      break
  }
  return [Math.floor(r * 256), Math.floor(g * 256), Math.floor(b * 256)]
}

// # use golden ratio
const golden_ratio_conjugate = 0.618033988749895
let h = Math.random() // # use random start value
const gen_hex = (numberOfColors) => {
  const colorArray = []
  while (numberOfColors > 0) {
    h += golden_ratio_conjugate
    h %= 1
    colorArray.push(rgb2hex(hsv_to_rgb(h, 0.99, 0.99)))
    numberOfColors -= 1
  }
  console.log(colorArray)
  return colorArray
}

gen_hex(100)

https://jsbin.com/qeyevoj/edit?js,console

Answer 5

This can be very easily be found using Google Search:

function random_color(format)
{
    var rint = Math.round(0xffffff * Math.random());
    switch(format)
    {
        case 'hex':
            return ('#0' + rint.toString(16)).replace(/^#0([0-9a-f]{6})$/i, '#$1');
            break;

        case 'rgb':
            return 'rgb(' + (rint >> 16) + ',' + (rint >> 8 & 255) + ',' + (rint & 255) + ')';
            break;

        default:
            return rint;
            break;
    }
}

Updated version:

function random_color( format ){
  var rint = Math.floor( 0x100000000 * Math.random());
  switch( format ){
    case 'hex':
      return '#' + ('00000'   + rint.toString(16)).slice(-6).toUpperCase();
    case 'hexa':
      return '#' + ('0000000' + rint.toString(16)).slice(-8).toUpperCase();
    case 'rgb':
      return 'rgb('  + (rint & 255) + ',' + (rint >> 8 & 255) + ',' + (rint >> 16 & 255) + ')';
    case 'rgba':
      return 'rgba(' + (rint & 255) + ',' + (rint >> 8 & 255) + ',' + (rint >> 16 & 255) + ',' + (rint >> 24 & 255)/255 + ')';
    default:
      return rint;
  }
}

Answer 6

Use distinct-colors.

It generates a palette of visually distinct colors.

distinct-colors is highly configurable:

• Choose how many colors are in the palette
• Restrict the hue to a specific range
• Restrict the chroma (saturation) to a specific range
• Restrict the lightness to a specific range
• Configure general quality of the palette