The entire article including the very title explains that this is an improved version of Rainbow, of which they are very well aware and cite very clearly, and tweak for well explained reasons.
Sorry, my comment was unclear. They are comparing against jet, which is a colourmap that uses all the colours of the rainbow. They are not using the colourmap _called_ `rainbow`, to compare against.
You are right and I was wrong. The ‘rainbow’ map at the matplotlib link happens to be plotted next to ‘jet’ and the lack of perceptual banding in comparison is clear. Looks like the Google author came up with a similar idea.
Whoever gave the name ‘rainbow’ to their rainbow colormap?! It’s like naming a dog ‘dog’.
Yeah, it's not the best name. There is also the 'Spectral' colour map that is plotted in a different section, which imo is much better suited as being a diverging colour map as yellow looks more 'neutral' than bright green.
