As techniques for analysis of complex biological data improve, there is a concurrent need for simple yet accurate methods of analyzing this data. Researchers at the University of Nebraska Medical Center have created a method of visualizing complex, multidimensional data using component plane presentations of clustered data. This method involves individual data being organized into map units (clusters of related data) which are located into a neighborhood map so that clusters which are more similarly related to each other are near to one another spatially. In a component plane presentation of the organized data, the map units of the neighborhood map are shaded according to the values of the components of each map.