What are the mathematics behind UI aesthetics like color harmony?

I have to develop a little tool inside my project like the "Harmony color" palette in Adobe Illustrator or Kuler -- the user can select one or two color and the tool suggests a 4 or 5 "harmonized" palette based on that. Where can i find some documents开发者_运维百科, math rules or other background on this?

This generally known as "colo(u)r theory" - there's a pretty good explanation of the various approaches at: http://www.colormatters.com/colortheory.html (If you're after more, simply Google "color theory".)

In general it's reasonably easy to create your own palettes using the above theory, although you'll make your life easier if you create your own HSB/V to RGB colo(u)r conversation function. (Then again, your language/framework of choice may already have such a thing.)