I have a standard data model that takes all observations of scientific measurement values in a single large table. Here is a subset:
quantity AS [QUANTITY NAME],
unit AS [UNIT NAME],
measurement_value AS [MEASUREMENT VALUE],
Now, quantity name may include many dimensional values:
electric flux (flux of displacement)
quantity of electricity
angular frequency
gyromagnetic coefficient
angular repetency
angular wavenumber
attenuation coefficient
gyromagnetic ratio
The quantity name has a corresponding one or more units. This may include, for example:
ampere second
ampere second
hertz
ampere square metre per joule second
radian per metre
radian per metre
reciprocal metre
ampere square metre per joule second
For each measurement, and there may be billions of rows, the actual measured numerical value is stored in [MEASUREMENT VALUE] - for instance, a row may look like:
| [QUANTITY NAME] | [UNIT NAME] | [MEASUREMENT VALUE] |
|---|
| electric flux (flux of displacement) | ampere second | 1.232324 |
| quantity of electricity | ampere second | .0000999988888 |
| angular repetency | radian per metre | 121.56434566 |
Now, while this is wildly efficient, it raises an issue when using Sense. I have many dimensions, but only one measurement to plot. Hence, its not obvious how to plot or compare multiple measurements (multivariate charting and reporting).
Hence, I want to chart quantity of electricity as expressed as ampere second and also show the relationship to electric flux (flux of displacement) as expressed as ampere second. In a perfect, though much less efficient world, I would have a single column, not row, for each combination of quantity and unit name, and the rows would be the values. Then I would have very clear measurements and Sense would be smiling all the way to the UI. However, I have up to 10,000 different classifications of measurements, and no database is going to store some 10,000 columns with billions of rows.
So, the question is: how do I plot a multivariate chart when the data is in this format, without overburdening the user with manual work?
