The color of a plot can be specified by a string or a color data structure. Some 3-D plotting commands can also accept a color option value in the form of a procedure or expression.

The strings that can be given directly to a plotting command are those from the "HTML" color palette. To see a list of all colors in this palette, issue the command ColorTools:-GetPalette("HTML"). See the ColorTools:-GetPalette help page for more information. "HTML".

Colors from other palettes understood by Maple can also be used by adding the palette name as a prefix in the string passed to the plotting command. For example, to generate a curve with the "Violet" color from the "Spring" palette, use the option color="Spring Violet". The ColorTools:-PaletteNames command gives a list of all available palettes.

You can specify colors by their RGB values using a color data structure, which is constructed with the ColorTools:-Color command. An example is: color=ColorTools:-Color([0.5, 0.2, 0.1]). Other color spaces, such as "HSV", are also available and are described on the ColorTools:-ColorSpaces help page.

A default set of colors from the "Niagara" palette is used by certain plotting commands, including the 2-D plot command. You can change the default assignment of colors with the plots:-setcolors command.

Some 3-D plotting commands, including plot3d, also allow you to specify a procedure or an expression involving the plot variables. This feature is useful for purposes such as visualizing four-dimensional objects using color as the fourth dimension.  For more information, see the plot3d/colorfunc help page.

The color option was updated in Maple 16.