Routines (alphabetical) > Routines: P > PCOMP

# PCOMP

The PCOMP function computes the principal components of an m-column, n-row array, where m is the number of variables and n is the number of observations or samples. The principal components of a multivariate data set may be used to restate the data in terms of derived variables or may be used to reduce the dimensionality of the data by reducing the number of variables (columns).

This routine is written in the IDL language. Its source code can be found in the file `pcomp.pro` in the `lib` subdirectory of the IDL distribution.

## Examples

The example `pcomp_doc.pro` illustrates the use of PCOMP. This example file is installed in the IDL installation’s `/example/doc/language` directory. To view the example code, enter `.edit pcomp_doc.pro` at the IDL command line. To execute the code, enter `pcomp_doc` at the IDL command line.

When the above program is compiled and executed, the following output is produced:

Result:

-107.38 13.40 -1.41 -0.03

3.20 0.70 5.95 -0.02

32.50 38.66 -3.87 0.01

40.89 13.79 -4.98 -0.01

-107.24 19.36 1.77 0.02

18.43 -17.15 -1.47 -0.00

99.89 -6.23 0.13 0.02

45.38 8.11 6.53 -0.01

-21.31 -18.31 3.75 -0.01

5.54 -11.17 -4.52 0.02

83.14 4.97 0.09 0.01

87.11 -3.16 2.81 0.00

-101.32 -11.78 -6.12 0.01

-73.07 6.24 6.61 0.02

-137.02 -19.10 1.33 0.01

57.11 6.96 0.84 -0.01

42.13 -10.07 -2.14 0.01

83.30 -16.69 -2.72 -0.01

-54.13 2.56 -4.21 -0.03

2.84 -1.06 1.62 -0.01

Coefficients:

Mode#1 4.8799 5.0568 1.0282 4.7936

Mode#2 1.0147 -0.9545 3.4885 -0.7743

Mode#3 -0.6183 -0.9554 0.2690 1.5796

Mode#4 -0.0900 0.0752 0.0472 0.0022

Eigenvectors:

Mode#1 0.0665 0.0689 0.0140 0.0653

Mode#2 0.0690 -0.0649 0.2372 -0.0526

Mode#3 -0.1601 -0.2473 0.0697 0.4089

Mode#4 -5.6290 4.7013 2.9540 0.1372

Reconstruction error: 1.44876e-010

Energy conservation: 1748.17 1748.17

Mode Eigenvalue PercentVariance

1 73.4205 79.7970

2 14.7099 15.9875

3 3.86271 4.19818

4 0.0159915 0.0173803

The first two derived variables account for 96% of the total variance of the original data.

## Syntax

Result = PCOMP( A [, COEFFICIENTS=variable] [, /COVARIANCE] [, /DOUBLE] [, EIGENVALUES=variable] [, NVARIABLES=value] [, /STANDARDIZE] [, VARIANCES=variable] )

## Return Value

The result is an nvariables-column (nvariables≤m), n‑row array of derived variables.

## Arguments

### A

An m-column, n-row, single- or double-precision floating-point array.

## Keywords

### COEFFICIENTS

Use this keyword to specify a named variable that will contain the principal components used to compute the derived variables. The principal components are the coefficients of the derived variables and are returned in an m-column, m-row array. The rows of this array correspond to the coefficients of the derived variables. The coefficients are scaled so that the sums of their squares are equal to the eigenvalue from which they are computed.

### COVARIANCE

Set this keyword to compute the principal components using the covariances of the original data. The default is to use the correlations of the original data to compute the principal components.

### DOUBLE

Set this keyword to use double-precision for computations and to return a double-precision result. Set DOUBLE=0 to use single-precision for computations and to return a single-precision result. The default is /DOUBLE if Array is double precision, otherwise the default is DOUBLE=0.

### EIGENVALUES

Use this keyword to specify a named variable that will contain a one-column, m-row array of eigenvalues that correspond to the principal components. The eigenvalues are listed in descending order.

### NVARIABLES

Use this keyword to specify the number of derived variables. A value of zero, negative values, and values in excess of the input array’s column dimension result in a complete set (m-columns and n-rows) of derived variables.

### STANDARDIZE

Set this keyword to convert the variables (the columns) of the input array to standardized variables (variables with a mean of zero and variance of one).

### VARIANCES

Use this keyword to specify a named variable that will contain a one-column, m-row array of variances. The variances correspond to the percentage of the total variance for each derived variable.

## Version History

5.0 | Introduced

## See Also

CORRELATE, EIGENQL