hi bruce,

they sort of come from therion, but it's a bad hack.
it was just a proof-of-concept.
i was too lazy to play with the sources, so i did it by hand.

anyways, here is the recipe:
define one preview color not used elsewhere (just to find it easily), say [70 20 20].
compile with debug (-d).
go in thTMPDIR and edit the tex file, search the preview color (0.70 0.20 0.20
in the example), and insert your colors before the maps
(you might have to rearrange their order as well).
run pdftex (the "final" step of therion compile): data.pdf is your map.

kind of awkward, isn't it ?
that's why i'd like to have it done by therion without any fiddling with the temporary files.

by the way, i also noticed the problem with preview-above, but i do not know
if it's therion or the reader.

marco