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Using Desmos: Adding Custom Colors

Created: 2025/3/10

Desmos Graphing Calculator provides several default colors for graphs and labels, and you can specify their colors.

Additionally, you can use custom-defined colors. Since this requires a few steps, let's go through them one by one.

Defining Colors

First, you need to define a new color and assign it to a variable. Here are some ways to define colors:

rgb (Red, Green, Blue)

rgb() specifies the proportion of red, green, and blue, each ranging from 0 to 255.

hsv (Hue, Saturation, Value)

hsv() specifies hue, saturation, and value. Hue ranges from 0 to 360, saturation from 0 to 1, and value from 0 to 1.

Using Defined Colors

Once you assign a defined color to a variable, you can use it.

Note that you must assign the color to a variable; otherwise, it won't appear in the options.

Advanced

Variable-Dependent Colors

The rgb() and hsv() functions can take variables as arguments. This means you can create colors that change based on variable values. You can also use curly braces {} to define conditional expressions.

c_1=\mathrm{rgb}(0,a,255-a)

c_{2}=\{\,0\le b\le 1 :\mathrm{rgb}\left(200,0,0\right),\ 1<b<2 :\mathrm{rgb}\left(0,200,0\right),\ 2\le b\le 3 :\mathrm{rgb}\left(0,0,200\right)\,\}

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Defining Colors in Lists

You can use lists or for loops to define multiple colors at once.

For example, the graph below demonstrates how to plot multiple points, each with a different color:

P=(x,y)\ \mathrm{for}\ x=[\,0,1,2\,]\ y=[\,0,1,2\,]

c=\mathrm{rgb}(0,200-100P.x,100P.y)

P+0.3(\cos t,\sin t)

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You can even use this technique to create gradients.

D=[\,0,... ,255\,]

c=\mathrm{rgb}(0,255-D,D)

d=0.02

y=dD\,\{0\leq x\leq 255d\}

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Using Desmos: Points (Labels) and Vectors

Using Desmos: Domains and Conditional Logic

Images are created with the Desmos Graphing Calculator, used with permission from Desmos Studio PBC.