[BiO BB] plotter and tabular data - visualization

[Ann Loraine]

Hello all,

I'm looking for a (kind of) specialized visualization tool, which I'm
sure must already exist...hopefully one of you can point me in the
right direction.

I want something that can read in columns of numbers, where each row
might be labeled with some value, such as a microarray slide id, or
something like that.

Then, I want to plot the columns of numbers against each other (a
scatter plot), so that I can, by eye, recognize any interesting
patterns relating one column to another, such as a linear
relationship, or correlation.

There are of course lots of programs that can do the plotting part
relatively easily, but I what I want on top of this is the ability to
interact with the plot.

For example, I want the tool to display the original data in a sort of
Excel-style spreadsheet format, so that I can click on one or more
rows or cells the spreadsheet and see the corresponding points in the
plot "light up." Likewise, I want to be able to click on points in the
plot, and see the corresponding rows get highlighted.

R has something like this, but it is very clumsy and awkward -- at
least, it was clumsy and awkard the last time I tried it, which was a
few years ago. Maybe there's something better now?

Please let me know if you have used something like this .. or just
heard about it!

Yours,

Ann Loraine

-- 
Ann Loraine, Assistant Professor
Departments of Genetics, Biostatistics,
Computer and Information Sciences
Associate Scientist, Comprehensive Cancer Center
University of Alabama at Birmingham
http://www.transvar.org
205-996-4155