Apparatus and method for selecting visualizations of multidimensional data

• US 20080036767A1
• Filed: 08/10/2006
• Published: 02/14/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 08/10/2006
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Business Objects Incorporated (SAP SE)
• Original Assignee: Business Objects SA (SAP SE)
• Inventors: Janzen, Douglas Stuart
• Application Number:
  US11/503,486
• Publication Number:
  US 20080036767A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/440
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

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.

Claims

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.

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.

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.

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.