The History View

The history view provides a graphical view of the value of a parameter over the course of an analytics case. You can use the history view to follow the progress of an optimization, where the change in the value of an objective or a constraint is an indicator of the performance of the optimization strategy.

See Also
Scoring and Ranking Each Alternative
Data Points Filters
Data Points Feasibility

In most analytics cases, the sequence in which the parameter values are stored has no significance; for example, when the parameters are generated by a Process Composer Design of Experiments (DOE) that is exploring the design space.

However, in some analytics cases, the sequence in which the parameter values are stored has significance; for example, when the parameters are created by a Process Composer optimization and the change in value shows the convergence toward an optimized solution. If you are studying an optimization, viewing the change in value of a selected parameter over the course of the analysis case allows you to evaluate the suitability of the optimization algorithm or to check if the results of the optimization are valid.

For example, the following history plot shows the change in the displacement of a node over the course of five iterations of a topology optimization that is trying to minimize the displacement:

The history plots take into account any filters that you have created—data points that have been filtered out appear as gaps in the plots.

Results Analytics displays thumbnail views of any images associated with a data point to the right of the history plots.

History Plot Operations

If you are viewing the progression of an analysis case, you may be interested in only the data points that converge to the solution. You can click from the history view toolbar to apply a filter that shows only data points that show an improvement over the solution compared with the previous data point. The definition of "improvement" used by the filter is based on the score computed by Results Analytics using priorities and weights and not on any metric calculated by the optimization algorithm.

By default, Results Analytics displays history plots of all the parameters that you declared as objectives or constraints. You can click from the history view toolbar to add or remove parameters from the display.

You can right-click a point in the history plot and do the following:

  • Add/remove the data point to/from the basket.
  • Display more information about the data point, and, if desired, exclude the data point from the scoring and ranking.

You can get an enlarged view of a history plot by double-clicking on a plot to display only that plot. (Click the close button in the upper-right corner to return to the default plot mode.)