Customizing Colors with Palettes

Color palettes let you customize colors and organize them in groups.

Simcenter STAR-CCM+ comes with a set of palettes that offer the choices of legacy colors, defaults in a 256-colors, and Siemens colors. Additionally, you can create your own palettes and use them to store any colors you want.

To work with these palettes, use the following techniques:

Action Instructions
Use a color from a specified color palette for a particular scene or plot
  1. Access the color control of the object to which you wish to apply a certain color palette, for example:
    • For a geometry scene, set the displayer Color Mode property to Constant, and select the newly activated Color sub-node.
    • In a plot, expand the sub-nodes including the data set node (usually in a Y Type node, or in the Data Series node), and select the Line Style or Symbol Style node, depending on which of them you are using in the plot display.
  2. In the Color property, click (Custom Editor).
  3. In the Color dialog, access the Palette tab. From the drop-down list, select one of the available color palettes.
  4. Select the new color to use for the object you are editing, and click OK.
Specify the use of a color palette uniformly to all plots in the simulation
  1. Select the Plot Colors node and set the Default Color Palette property to the desired option.
  2. Right-click and select Apply Colors to All Plots.

For more information about this color control for plots, see Customizing Plot Colors.
Specify the use of a color palette for some or all objects within a plot
  1. Select the Color Assignment sub-node of the plot and set the Color Palette property to the desired option.
  2. Right-click the desired object, such as a data set node, and select Style > Reset Color Assignment.

    For details about this functionality, see instructions for assigning colors in the Color Assignment node.
Set up a custom color palette
  1. Right-click the Tools > Color Palettes node and select New.
  2. If desired, rename the new color palette node to associate it with its purpose, for example your company's colors, or a particular project.
  3. Add a new color to your palette as follows:
    1. In the Swatches property of the color palette node, click (Custom Editor).
    2. In the color palette editor, click Add a new color ("+").
    3. In the Select a Color dialog, choose a color using any of the tabs. In the Palette tab, you can access stock color palettes from the drop-down menu near the top, and select any of those colors for your own palette.
    4. Click OK.
  4. Use the technique in the previous instruction to add as many more colors as you wish.
  5. To change the sequence of the colors in the color palette editor, drag and drop the colors, or use the directional buttons on the right-hand side:
    • Move to top: move the region to the top of the list
    • Move up: move the region up one position
    • Move down: move the region down one position
    • Move to bottom: move the region to the bottom of the list
  6. To delete a color, select that color in the main view of the dialog and press <Delete>, or click Remove selected color ("–"). Colors below the deleted color shift upward.
  7. To close the color palette editor, click OK.