R function that loads in chromatography.js, constructs a string of JS code, passes that code for evaluation (using the 'V8' package), and returns a palette of visually different colors.

chromatography.R

library(V8)

# Create function to generate palette of visually different colors
hex_palette <- function(no_colors,
                        hue_range = NULL,
                        chroma_range = NULL,
                        lightness_range = NULL){
  
  pal <- function(col, border = "light gray", ...){
    n <- length(col)
    plot(0, 0, type = "n", xlim = c(0, 1), ylim = c(0, 1),
         axes = FALSE, xlab = "", ylab = "", ...)
    rect(0:(n-1)/n, 0, 1:n/n, 1, col = col, border = border)
  }
  
  js_call <- paste0("var colors = createPalette.generate(",
                    no_colors, ", function(color){ var hcl = color.hcl(); return hcl[0]>=",
                    hue_range[1], " && hcl[0]<=",
                    hue_range[2], "&& hcl[1]>=",
                    chroma_range[1], "&& hcl[1]<=",
                    chroma_range[2], "&& hcl[2]>=",
                    lightness_range[1], "&& hcl[2]<=",
                    lightness_range[2], "; }, false, 20);",
                    "var colors = createPalette.diffSort(colors); colors;")
  
  ct <- new_context("window")
  invisible(ct$source('https://raw.githubusercontent.com/WeAreVisualizers/chromatography/master/chromatography.js'))
  
  hex_colors <- unlist(strsplit(ct$eval(js_call), ","))
  
  pal(hex_colors)
  return(hex_colors)  
}

# Generate a palette of 5 colours of low chroma and high lightness
colors <- hex_palette(no_colors = 5,
                      hue_range = c(0, 360),
                      chroma_range = c(0, 0.9),
                      lightness_range = c(1.0, 1.5))