[pstricks] Working with multiple data columns

[Brandon Kuczenski]

Hello all,

I often encounter a situation where I have many related data sets that I 
would like to plot together in PStricks; however, most of the macros I am 
familiar with expect two data columns: independent and dependent variable.

When working with data involving one independent and several dependent 
variables, I find that the presentation of the data often depends on the 
entire corpus of data, that you can't plot one data set without also 
incorporating the others.

For example, see the attached figure.  The source data for this figure is 
"bottles", "sheet and film", and "fiber".  However, I can't plot just the 
straight data... I have to plot "bottles" + "sheet and film" + "fiber" 
first, then "bottles" + "sheet and film" on top, then "bottles" on top of 
that.  Presently I compute these sums in an external program and produce 
very specific derived data sets to plot.  But if I want to change the 
order of the layers, I have to recompute the data and generate a new data 
file.

This could be avoided if I could somehow perform computations on multiple 
data sets within pstricks- I could then have data for bottles, data for 
sheet and film, and data for fiber, and add them together as I need to 
make the plot.

[hoping that the question is clear enough]-- is there a way to accomplish 
this sort of thing in pstricks?  I'm prettty familiar with the pst bundle 
but I don't know much postscript.  But I sense that I might have to wade 
into postscript for this one.

Thanks in advance for any insights.
-Brandon
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