# Plotting rainbow circle [duplicate]

I am trying to plot a parametric circle in rainbow colors. It should go round once, but I'd like to be able to make it go round the rainbow an arbitrary amount of times.

I currently have:

ParametricPlot3D[{Sin[u] Sin[Theta], Cos[u] Sin[Theta],
Cos[Theta]} /. Theta -> Pi/6, {u, -Pi, Pi},
PlotStyle -> Directive[Thickness[.01]],
ColorFunction -> Function[{x, y, z}, ColorData["Rainbow"][(Arg[x + I y] + Pi)/(2 Pi)]]]


Which I think should choose a color from the ColorData named Rainbow (which changes only between 0 and 1 (the result of Arg lies between -Pi and Pi, so adding Pi and dividing the resulting interval by 2 Pi will give me a number between 0 and 1) depending on the angle of the circle. I get an almost decent result if I divide by Pi/2 instead of 2 Pi:

But I have no idea why there is yellow and green twice. I'm certainly missing something, does anyone know what?

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## marked as duplicate by Artes, Michael E2, Silvia, Oleksandr R., Sjoerd C. de VriesJun 13 '13 at 19:44

Look up ColorFunctionScaling. –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Jun 13 '13 at 13:23
@0x4A4D Adding ColorFunctionScaling->False "fixes" it. But why would it being set to True mess up my own scaled values? –  rubenvb Jun 13 '13 at 13:37
If you look at the docs, you'll see that with the setting ColorFunctionScaling -> True, the x and y are scaled even before being fed to your color function; that's different from scaling Arg[], the output. –  Ｊ. Ｍ. Jun 13 '13 at 13:42
–  Kuba Jun 13 '13 at 14:54

Since you're providing the scaling, you don't want Mathematica to do it, so

ParametricPlot3D[{Sin[u] Sin[Theta], Cos[u] Sin[Theta], Cos[Theta]} /. Theta -> Pi/6,
{u, -Pi, Pi},
PlotStyle -> Directive[Thickness[.1]],
ColorFunction ->
Function[{x, y, z}, ColorData["Rainbow"][(Arg[x + I y] + Pi)/(2 Pi)]],
ColorFunctionScaling -> False]


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Building on m_goldberg's answer, you can also use Hue instead of Rainbow -- this provides brighter colors and is still pretty much around the rainbow.

ParametricPlot3D[{Sin[u] Sin[Theta], Cos[u] Sin[Theta],
Cos[Theta]} /. Theta -> Pi/6, {u, -Pi, Pi},
PlotStyle -> Directive[Thickness[.1]],
ColorFunction -> Function[{x, y, z}, Hue[(Arg[x + I y] + Pi)/(2 Pi)]],
ColorFunctionScaling -> False, Boxed -> False, Axes -> False]


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