NGH
Hang in there and keep reading. This get really simple and cool once you get the hang of it.
The ECU outputs lines of data that (generally are a snapshot in time of what the motor was seeing at any given moment. Each one of these rows of data is known as a record. To keep things simple for now lets picture just MAP, RPM, TPS, Ignition Advance Front and Rear, VE front and VE Rear, 02 volts front and o2 volts rear just to keep it simple.
A scatter plot in it's most basic form, can group together every time that the motor reported some specific MAP and some specific RPM and count up how many times that happened in a ride. In MLVHD you can pick "Hits" and use the third color to represent how many times MLV saw that exact RPM and MAP and display the hits as color.
Things get a little more interesting when you start adding the third axis to display say average o2 voltage front as you may have hit that combination of MAP and RPM over the ride.
We will take on the more abstract plots later.
Andy