Plotting Lists of Data
Mathematica can be used to make plots of functions. You give Mathematica a function, and it builds up a curve or surface by evaluating the function at many different points.
Here we describe how you can make plots from lists of data, instead of functions. ("Importing and Exporting Data" discusses how to read data from external files and programs.) The Mathematica commands for plotting lists of data are direct analogs of the ones for plotting functions.
| ListPlot[{y1,y2,...}] | plot  at x values  |
| ListPlot[{{x1,y1},{x2,y2},...}] | plot points  |
| ListLinePlot[list] | join the points with lines |
| ListPlot3D[{{z11,z12,...},{z21,z22,...},...}] |
| make a three-dimensional plot of the array of heights  |
| ListPlot3D[{{x1,y1,z1},{x2,y2,z2},...}] |
| make a three-dimensional plot with heights  at positions  |
| ListContourPlot[array] | make a contour plot |
| ListDensityPlot[array] | make a density plot |
Functions for plotting lists of data.
Here is a list of values.
| Out[1]= |  |
| Out[2]= |  |
This joins the points with lines.
| Out[3]= |  |
When plotting multiple datasets,
Mathematica chooses a different color for each dataset automatically.
| Out[4]= |  |
This gives a list of
pairs.
| Out[5]= |  |
| Out[6]= |  |
This gives a rectangular array of values. The array is quite large, so we end the input with a semicolon to stop the result from being printed out.
This makes a three-dimensional plot of the array of values.
| Out[8]= |  |
This gives a density plot of the array of values.
| Out[9]= |  |
