Frequently I have to visualize multiple datasets simultaneously, usually in ListPlot or its Log-companions. Since the number of datasets is usually larger than the number of easily distinguishable line styles and creating large plot legends is still somewhat unintuitiv I am still searching for a good way to annotate the different lines/sets in my plots. Tooltip is nice when working on screen, but they don't help if I need to pritn the plot.
Recently, I played around with the Mesh option to enumerate my datasets and found some weird stuff
GraphicsGrid[Partition[Table[ListPlot[
Transpose@
Table[{Sin[x], Cos[x], Tan[x], Cot[x]}, {x, 0.01, 10, 0.1}],
PlotMarkers -> {"1", "2", "3", "4"}, Mesh -> i, Joined -> True,
PlotLabel -> "Mesh\[Rule]" <> ToString[i], ImageSize -> 180], {i,
1, 30}], 4]]
The result looks like this on my machine (Windows 7 x64, Mathematica 8.0.1):
Funnily, for Mesh->2, 8 , and 10 the result looks like I expected it, the rest does not. Either I don't understand the Mesh option, or it doesn't understand me.
Here are my questions:
- is Mesh in ListPLot bugged or do I use it wrongly?
- how could I x-shift the mesh points of successive sets to avoid overprinting?
- do you have any other suggestions how to annotate/enumerate multiple datasets in a plot?