Mathematica 8 brings a high level of algorithm automation and computational aesthetics to statistical visualization. Histograms—binned or smoothed—show the shapes of distributions. Quantile and probability plots compare data to a reference distribution. Box-and-whisker and distribution charts compare the distribution shapes for several datasets.

• New pairwise histogram and density histogram functions. »
• Additional automatic binning methods.
• Direct support for several distribution functions (PDF, CDF, survival function, hazard function, cumulative hazard function) for all histogram functions. »
• New suite of smooth kernel density estimate-based visualization functions for univariate and bivariate distributions. »
• Fully automatic adaptive bandwidth selection or advanced user control for ideal tradeoff between smoothing and noise in density estimates.
• Direct support for several distributions (PDF, CDF, survival function, hazard function, cumulative hazard function) for all smooth kernel density estimates. »
• Support for logarithmic scaling of binned or kernel density-based histograms.
• New quantile-quantile and probability-probability plot functions. »
• Automatic support for data vs. data, data vs. distribution, and distribution vs. distribution in quantile-quantile and probability-probability plot functions.
• Automatic parameter estimation in quantile-quantile and probability-probability plots when comparing to a distribution family.
• New probability-scale plot supporting Weibull, normal, exponential, Gumbel, etc. plots. »
• Automatic support for probability scales and probability-paper in probability scale plots.
• New fully customizable box-and-whisker chart function. »
• New distribution chart functionality showing complete distribution shape estimates. »
• Full suite of chart element functions for a wide variety of aesthetics for box-and-whisker and distribution charting functions.

Binned and Smoothed Histograms »	Several Different Distribution Functions »	Created Paired Histograms for Comparing Data »
Specify Bin Sizes for Histograms »	Specify Bandwidth and Kernel for Smooth Histograms »	Log-Scaled Histograms »
Show Bird's-Eye View of 2D Data  »	Annotate Binned Density Histograms with Marginal Distributions »	Visualize Marginal Distributions for Estimated Distributions »
Q-Q Plots »	Compare Data and Distributions with Q-Q Plots »	Create Q-Q Plots with Estimated Distribution Parameters »
Probability Plots »	Compare Data and Distributions with Probability Plots »	Create Probability Plots with Estimated Distribution Parameters »
Plot Data with Axes Scaled for Specific Distributions »	Compare Several Datasets in a Single Plot »	Compare Multiple Datasets »
Create Box-and-Whisker Charts »	Use Built-in Appearances for Box-and-Whisker Charts »	Create Custom Box-and-Whisker Appearances »
Create Distribution Charts »	Use Built-in Appearances for Distribution Charts »	Create Custom Distribution Chart Appearances »
Built-in Library of Chart Appearances »	Combine Histograms with Data »	Compare University Salaries »

RELATED FUNCTIONS

Histogram  Histogram3D  PairedHistogram  DensityHistogram  SmoothHistogram  SmoothHistogram3D  SmoothDensityHistogram  QuantilePlot  ProbabilityPlot  ProbabilityScalePlot  BoxWhiskerChart  DistributionChart