How to access new colour schemes in version 10?

Question

Many colour schemes and colour functions can be accessed using ColorData.

Version 10 introduced new default colour schemes, and a new customization option using PlotTheme. The colour themes accessible with PlotTheme have both discrete colour schemes and gradients.

Is there a standard way to access these? I.e. get a colour function that take a real argument in $[0,1]$ and returns a shade, or one that takes an integer argument and returns a colour, as with ColorData.

Answer 1

Update 2: The content and organization of $PlotThemes in versions 10 and 9 are very different. In Version 10

 Charting`$PlotThemes

gives

whereas in Version 9, the content is organized around Charting/Plotting functions (See the picture in original post below.)

The color schemes can be obtained using:

 "Color"/. Charting`$PlotThemes
 (* BackgroundColor, BlackBackground, BoldColor, ClassicColor, CoolColor,
    DarkColor,GrayColor, NeonColor,PastelColor, RoyalColor, VibrantColor, WarmColor, 
    DefaultColor, EarthColor, GarnetColor, OpalColor, SapphireColor, SteelColor,
    SunriseColor, TextbookColor, WaterColor} *)

 Grid[{#,Row@(("DefaultPlotStyle"/.(Method/. 
   Charting`ResolvePlotTheme[#,   ListPlot]))/.
      Directive[x_,__]:>x)}&/@("Color"/. Charting`$PlotThemes),Dividers->All]

Update: The function that defines the color schemes and styles seems to be ResolvePlotTheme, which is in the Charting context in both Version 9 and 10.

?Charting`ResolvePlotTheme
(* too long  to copy here ... *)

For example,

Charting`ResolvePlotTheme["Vibrant", ContourPlot]
(* {BaseStyle -> GrayLevel[0.5], BoundaryStyle -> None, 
   ColorFunction -> (Blend[{Hue[0.5, 1, 0.5], Hue[0.35, 0.5, 0.7], 
                     Hue[0.17, 0.7, 0.9]}, #1] &), ContourStyle -> GrayLevel[1, 0.5],
   GridLines -> Automatic, 
   GridLinesStyle -> Directive[GrayLevel[0.5], Dashing[{0, Small}]], 
   Method -> {"GridLinesInFront" -> True}}  *)

So, one can access the color functions used in these themes using something like;

 Grid[{#, ColorFunction /. Charting`ResolvePlotTheme[#, ContourPlot]} & /@
          ("ContourPlot" /. Charting`$PlotThemes), Dividers -> All]

More generally, one can get the settings for ColorFunction, ChartStyle, PlotStyle BaseStyle etc. using a similar approach:

Grid[{#, Column@FilterRules[Charting`ResolvePlotTheme[#, PieChart], 
         {ColorFunction, ChartStyle, BaseStyle}]} & /@
  ("PieChart" /. Charting`$PlotThemes), Dividers -> All] 

---

PlotTheme seems to work in Version 9.0.1.0 as an undocumented feature:

?*`*PlotTheme*

After Unprotect and ClearAttributes[--,ReadProtected] one can access some details. For example:

?Charting`$PlotThemes

And, despite syntax hightlighting suggesting error, they work as expected:

Row[Plot[Table[BesselJ[n, x], {n, 5}], {x, 0, 10}, Evaluated -> True, 
ImageSize -> 400, PlotLabel -> Style[#, 20], 
Charting`PlotTheme -> #] & /@ {"Vibrant", "Monochrome"}]

Answer 2

For ease of direct access I have found through digging the following relationships for indexed colors:

map = {"Default" -> 97, "Earth" -> 98, "Garnet" -> 99, "Opal" -> 100, "Sapphire" -> 101, 
   "Steel" -> 102, "Sunrise" -> 103, "Textbook" -> 104, "Water" -> 105, 
   "BoldColor" -> 106, "CoolColor" -> 107, "DarkColor" -> 108, "MarketingColor" -> 109, 
   "NeonColor" -> 109, "PastelColor" -> 110, "RoyalColor" -> 111, "VibrantColor" -> 112, 
   "WarmColor" -> 113};

For example:

ColorData["Sunrise" /. map, "ColorList"]

Visually:

("Default" was added manually; it is not listed with the others that I can find.)

In addition to indexed colors each of these PlotThemes has rules for gradient colors, Financial plots, Wavelet plots etc. For example "MarketingColor" and "NeonColor" use the same indexed color scheme but other details are different.

This additional data may be conveniently found as follows. (You will need step.)

Plot[x, {x, 0, 1}]; (* preload PlotThemes system *)

System`PlotThemeDump`resolvePlotTheme["BoldColor", ""] // step

System`PlotThemeDump`resolvePlotTheme["Sunrise", ""]   // step

You can copy values directly or let the Switch statement assign the value to the appropriate Symbol.
For example to find the gradient colors used by:

BarChart[{Range@98}, PlotTheme -> "DarkColor"]

We can use this:

System`PlotThemeDump`resolvePlotTheme["DarkColor", ""];

System`PlotThemeDump`$ThemeColorGradient

You can of course view all definitions at once but be warned that it is long:

?? System`PlotThemeDump`resolvePlotTheme

This Symbol can also used to customize plot themes as I described in the second half of my answer to:

• Is it possible to define a new PlotTheme?