3d plot of 4d data with expanding markers - well, not exactly

Greetings,

I feel sure that someone has already answered this question elsewhere but I was unable to find it, so apologies in advance. I have a data set that consist of 3 vectors, x, y, and z. The x and y vectors each represent different frequencies which are paired to each other (x1/y1, x2/y2 etc), and particular pairs may be repeated one or many times in the vectors. The Z values are magnitudes of a calculation performed for those frequency pairs, and even though the x,y pair might repeat, it can have a different z value each time.

The number of times a particular frequency pair appears is also a critical value. So after processing, for each x.y pair I would like the associated number of times that pair occurred, and the maximal Z value of any of those pairs. Then create some type of 3d columnn/bar something plot where the location in the x,y plane is determined by the x,y values, the height of the column is the total number of times that x,y pair appeared, and the color of the column is the z=max value.

Anyone have an idea of how to approach this? We also thought of plotting circles on an x,y plane with the size of the circles dependent on the number of x,y hits for a given pair and the color dependent on the z-max value.

Any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Jeremy