1. A method of compiling thermographic data, comprising the steps of: A) obtaining data indicative of a monotonically changing characteristic of a specimen, B) sequencing the data or a surrogate of the data into a plurality of groups, C) categorizing, within each group, the frequency distribution of an attribute of the data or an attribute of the surrogate data, D) compiling, from two or more groups, a collection of the frequency distributions categorized in step C).