Apparatus and method for selecting visualizations of multidimensional data
A computer readable medium includes executable instructions to associate data from a data source with one or more axes of a first visualization. A set of rules are applied to determine if it is meaningful to render the data in a second visualization.
1 . A computer readable medium, comprising executable instructions to:
associate data from a data source with one or more axes of a first visualization; and
apply a set of rules to determine if it is meaningful to render the data in a second visualization.
2 . The computer readable medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to link metadata associated with the data to the set of rules.
3 . The computer readable medium of claim 2 wherein the metadata specifies if the data includes dimensions or measures.
4 . The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the first visualization is a generic visualization including a plurality of axes.
5 . The computer readable medium of claim 1 wherein the first visualization and the second visualization are selected from the group comprising a chart, a map, and a table.
6 . The computer readable medium of claim 1 further comprising executable instructions to:
reject the second visualization if it is not meaningful to render the data in the second visualization; and
accept the second visualization if it is meaningful to render the data in the second visualization.
7 . A computer readable medium, comprising executable instructions to:
map a first portion of data from a first multidimensional data source to a first axis in a first visualization; and
determine if it is meaningful to render the data in a second visualization.
8 . The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising executable instructions to map a second portion of data to a second axis in a first visualization.
9 . The computer readable medium of claim 8 wherein the second portion of data is from a second multidimensional data source.
10 . The computer readable medium of claim 9 wherein the first multidimensional data source and the second multidimensional data source are selected from at least one of an On Line Analytic Processing (OLAP) cube and a semantic layer.
11 . The computer readable medium of claim 7 further comprising executable instructions to add the second visualization to a list of valid visualizations.
12 . The computer readable medium of claim 111 further comprising executable instructions to present the list of valid visualizations to an application running on a computer.
13 . The computer readable medium of claim 11 further comprising executable instructions to:
select a third visualization from a list of visualizations; and
determine if it is meaningful to render the data in the third visualization.
14 . A computer readable medium, comprising executable instructions to:
specify a set of rules to assess whether a visualization is applicable to a view of data in a business intelligence tool;
render data from the view of data in the visualization; and
update a list of visualizations that the business intelligence tool can render.
15 . The method of claim 14 wherein the visualization is selected from the group including at least two of a chart, a map, and a table.
16 . The computer readable medium of claim 15 wherein the chart is selected from the group including at least two of: a bar chart, a pie chart, a scatter chart, a status chart, a variation chart, a times series chart, a correlation chart, a compare contribution chart, a combination chart, a frequency distribution chart, and a rank compare chart.