Get near or equivalent color name from hex decimal value windows apps

Question

Am getting color input from user using SfColorPalette, this returns me selected color as hex decimal color codes. But i need this colors as equivalent or exact color names since it will used to filter in search.

Tried below work arouds

Convert Hex to color

Get color from HexColor

String hex to color in windows phone runtime

You need color names like "Red" or "Dark Blue" ? There is about 16M colors (in 24bit RGB space). Not all of them has exact name... — Alamakanambra, Jul 22 '16 at 10:31
Yes i agree all has no exact names, So what i mentioned "get near" names in my question — Mohanvel V, Jul 22 '16 at 10:42
Why not instead show the colour in the filtering UI (this also gets around colour blindness issues where someone thinks they picked red and blue, and you ask about green and blue) — Rowland Shaw, Jul 22 '16 at 11:36
Filtering is done with search box text input, so its not possible to show UI — Mohanvel V, Jul 22 '16 at 11:38

Franklin Chen - MSFT · Accepted Answer · 2016-07-26T04:51:34.063

Here is my solution:

Firstly, I made a custom Class:

public class ColorReference
{
        public string Name { get; set; }
        public Vector3 Argb { get; set; }
}

This is to construct the known color which get from this site

private static ColorReference[] GetColorReferences()
{
            return new ColorReference[] {
                new ColorReference() { Name="AliceBlue", Argb=new Vector3 (
240,248,255) },
                new ColorReference() { Name="LightSalmon", Argb=new Vector3 (

255,160,122) },
        ......
        };
}

Secondly, I treat these Vectors as three-dimensional vectors, for a single vector, I can get the closest one based on Vector3.Distance method.

private static ColorReference GetClosestColor(ColorReference[] colorReferences, Vector3 currentColor)
{
            ColorReference tMin = null;
            float minDist = float.PositiveInfinity;

            foreach (ColorReference t in colorReferences)
            {
                float dist = Vector3.Distance(t.Argb, currentColor);
                if (dist < minDist)
                {
                    tMin = t;
                    minDist = dist;
                }
            }
            return tMin;
}

Use the above method to get the nearest color's name:

public static string GetNearestColorName(Vector3 vect)
        {
            var cr = GetClosestColor(GetColorReferences(), vect);
            if( cr != null )
            {
                return cr.Name;
            }
            else
                return string.Empty;
        }

Also need this method to extract argb value from hex demical value:

public static Vector3 GetSystemDrawingColorFromHexString(string hexString)
        {
            if (!System.Text.RegularExpressions.Regex.IsMatch(hexString, @"[#]([0-9]|[a-f]|[A-F]){6}\b"))
                throw new ArgumentException();
            int red = int.Parse(hexString.Substring(1, 2), NumberStyles.HexNumber);
            int green = int.Parse(hexString.Substring(3, 2), NumberStyles.HexNumber);
            int blue = int.Parse(hexString.Substring(5, 2), NumberStyles.HexNumber);
            return new Vector3(red, green, blue);
        }

Screenshot:

Check my completed demo from here: Github Link

----------Update 07/26/2016--------

For Windows/Phone 8.1, because the Vector3 class is missing, use the following class in your project:

public class Vector3
{
    public float X { get; set; }
    public float Y { get; set; }
    public float Z { get; set; }

    public Vector3(float x, float y, float z)
    {
        X = x;
        Y = y;
        Z = z;
    }
    public static float Distance(Vector3 a, Vector3 b)
    {
        return (float)Math.Sqrt(Math.Pow(a.X - b.X, 2) + Math.Pow(a.Y - b.Y, 2) + Math.Pow(a.Z - b.Z, 2)); ;
    }
}

Clever! I may never need to do this, but it offered me an insightful way of looking at relationships between colors. — MickeyfAgain_BeforeExitOfSO, Jul 25 '16 at 16:59
@Franklin ,Thanks for your answer. I need this for windows 8.1 app. Seems that your project is for windows 10.For windows 8.1 i dont find Vector3 class. — Mohanvel V, Jul 26 '16 at 03:58
@MohanvelV I created a Vector3 class for Windows/Phone 8.1, add this class in your project. Please check my updated answer — Franklin Chen - MSFT, Jul 26 '16 at 04:46

Get near or equivalent color name from hex decimal value windows apps

1 Answers1