# Custom coloring a parcellation of choice on fsaverage

**URL:** <https://mne.discourse.group/t/custom-coloring-a-parcellation-of-choice-on-fsaverage/7731>\
**Category:** Support & Discussions\
**Tags:** annotations\
**Created:** [October 24, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/custom-coloring-a-parcellation-of-choice-on-fsaverage/7731 "2023-10-24T15:32:11Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![maciej](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f9ae1b/32.png) [@maciej](https://mne.discourse.group/u/maciej)\
**Post date:** [October 24, 2023, 3:32pm UTC](https://mne.discourse.group/t/custom-coloring-a-parcellation-of-choice-on-fsaverage/7731/1 "2023-10-24T15:32:11Z")

</div>

Hello Everyone,

I recently installed MNE-Python for one purpose: I need to plot a cortex (fsaverage is fine) with parcels in a given parcellation displayed in colors that I can control (I’d do it with some colormap / palette).

I found [this](https://mne.tools/stable/auto_tutorials/forward/10_background_freesurfer.html#sphx-glr-auto-tutorials-forward-10-background-freesurfer-py) example. I understand from it that I should now explore the Freesurfer API to open and manipulate the values in the “lh.aparc.a2009s.annot” file to get control over the colors. My first question is if my understanding is correct.

Then the second questions is: how shall I obtain an “annot” file for some other parcellation? I would need Lausanne2008 and AAL parcellations. The `fsaverage/label`  
directory in my MNE installation is full of various parcellations, but not the ones I am interested in.  
Is anyone familiar with some repositories I could find them or the process of generating them from a .gii file?