1. A method, performed by one or more computers, for analyzing biological activity of a plurality of multi-cellular biological tissue samples comprising the steps of: generating, by at least one of the one or more computers, a multidimensional visualization in at least three dimensions of each of the samples, with each visualization comprising an image of each section in a first subset of serial thin sections cut from the sample corresponding to that visualization, and with each visualization mapped onto an x, y, z coordinate space wherein differing z coordinates identify differing serial sections, and an x, y coordinate pair identifies each location in a regular matrix grid pattern across the image of each serial section of the first subset; robotically incising a physical pattern, corresponding to the regular matrix grid pattern, across each serial section of a second subset of serial sections to form at least 300 grid locations for each section, thereby rasterizing each serial section of the second subset; robotically microdissecting a tissue subsample from each grid location; analyzing each tissue subsample and thereby producing a quantitative measure of at least one biological functional characteristic selected from the group consisting of gene expression and protein expression; and displaying, by at least one of the one or more computers, the biological functional characteristic superimposed upon at least part of the visualization of the corresponding sample.