Specifying parts from lists for plotting using Show

Question

I have the following data:

  setA = {
  {875, 0.399483}, 
  {880, 0.391583}, 
  {885, 0.383609}};
  setB = {
  {645, 0.690354}, 
  {650, 0.685416}, 
  {655, 0.680413}};

I'm trying to plot the data from both sets on the same plot. I can do the following:

var[set_,col_] := set[[All, col]];

setAx = var[setA,1]; setAy = var[setA,2]; 
setBx = var[setB,1]; setBy = var[setB,2];

then plot:

valplot[var1_, var2_, opts_] := 
ListPlot[Transpose[{var1, var2}], PlotRange -> All, 
PlotStyle -> {Red}, Joined -> False, opts]

setsAandBPlots = GraphicsGrid[{
                  {setAyPlot = valplot[setAx, setAy, AxesLabel -> {"variable x", "variable y"}]}

                    (* ,etc... *)
                    }, ImageSize -> 300]

This is pretty clunky, I know (i'm very new to programming - and i'm starting with mathematica...).

I want to make a series of these plots comparing different sets (and the actual datasets i'm using are much larger than these - many more rows and columns)

I would like to be able plot multiple subsets (e.g. "(setAx and setbx) versus (setAy and SetBy)", etc...) on the same plots (defined by different colored markers) using something like "Show". There must be a neat(er) way to do it using, say, "Position" and "Intersection" to pick the individual values for plotting.

I guess I'm asking if any one can help me find a more general/programatic way to populate the lists "setAx, setAy,setBx, etc..." without having to write them out long-hand?

Cheers!

EDIT:

Sorry I oversimplified my data. It looks more like this:

setA = {{8.0, 830, 0.466626, 1.720689,0.200740, 0.018637, 0.009023, 0.029482, 0.091949, 0.074304, 0, 0}, 
        {8.0, 835, 0.459588, 1.742870, 0.202380, 0.019201, 0.010261, 0.032965, 0.093269, 0.074717, 0, 0}}; 
setB = {{8.0, 845, 0.445114, 1.787952, 0.205660, 0.020367, 0.013240, 0.041201, 0.095895, 0.075504, 0, 0}, 
        {8.0, 850, 0.437659, 1.810861, 0.207301, 0.020968, 0.015022, 0.046038, 0.097197, 0.075877, 0, 0}};

so, the data is essentially of the form {{A1x, A1y, A1z,…},{A2x,…}}; {{B1x, B1y, B1z,…},{B2x,…}};.

I'd like to be able to plot various combinations with axes: x vs. z, y vs. z etc. ListPlot alone won't help me do this... hence the use of new lists of the form Transpose[{Ax, Az}] etc..

Answer 1

for x vs y plot:

ListPlot[setA[[All,{1,2}]],setB[[All,{1,2}]]]

where

setA[[All,{firstAxe,secondAxe}]]

is a list of point coordinates with respect to what you specify by {firstAxe,secondAxe}.

X axe stands for 1, Y for 2 and Z for 3.

Answer 2

The straightforward approach to answering the main part of your question, i.e. "..plot multiple subsets..using something like Show" is to use ListPlot on a list of data, see the manual on ListPlot

setA = {{875, 0.399483}, {880, 0.391583}, {885, 0.383609}};
setB = {{645, 0.690354}, {650, 0.685416}, {655, 0.680413}};

ListPlot[{setA, setB}]

which gives you a diagram like this:

ListPlot automatically gives the data sets different colors and you can use other functions such as Tooltip, StatusArea and Annotation to add interactive labeling.

To automatically populate the lists from a source outside of Mathematica, I can recommend this post about getting data from Excel.