Measurement Units

Quantity Kinds, Measurement Units and Conversion

 

Quantity Kinds

A quantity kind is a representation of all the properties that can be measured with the same kind (type) of measurement unit.

Some common examples of physical quantity kinds are:

  • Length

  • Area

  • Volume

  • Time

  • Mass

  • Temperature

Quantity kinds are often referred to as dimensions.

Quantity kinds in the ThinkIQ system allows for measurement unit conversion. It is important to understand that all measurements are of a single quantity kind and that quantity kinds cannot be interchanged. For example; a length cannot be time and an area cannot be a length. Length can, however, be measured using different measurement units, so that a length of 1 meter can be measured as 39.37 inches, 100 cm, or 10,000,000,000 Angstrom. All of these measurements represents the same quantity kind: length.

Qualified users can add quantity kinds into the Local Library of their system. Quantity kinds in the ThinkIQ Base library cannot be edited or deleted.

In ThinkIQ a quantity kind has the following properties:

  • Display name

  • Internal name (assigned automatically)

  • A symbol - used in equations. Example: velocity = length / time is written as v = l / t where v, l and t are symbols. 

  • A base measurement unit. The base measurement unit is the anchor for all unit conversions.

Quantity kinds are stored in the Model in the Quantities tab. Quantities belong to (are part of) libraries.

 

Measurement Units

Measurement units are descriptions of the type of measurement used to quantify an amount. Since all measurement units belong to a Quantity Kind, this provides a way to convert measurements between differing units within a Quantity Kind. 

The ThinkIQ Base Library provides an extensive list of measurement units. A measurement unit by design belong to a specific quantity kind. These measurement units have an Offset and a conversion Multiplier that allows the ThinkIQ system to be able to automatically make unit conversions between units of the same Quantity Kind as needed. 

End users can create new measurement units in their Local Library. They will need to associate the measurement unit with a Quantity Kind and determine the appropriate Offset and Multiplier to return an accurate result.

 

Measurement Unit Conversion

All measurement unit conversions are based on the Quantity Kind. The measurement unit within the Quantity Kind that has the multiplier of 1 is used as the base unit for all conversions within the Quantity Kind.

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