What is a shape?

Views are constructed using a shape, a pattern for searching for data within the PI System. The shape definition provides the following information which is critical to creating the view:

• what data to include

• how the data are structured in the view

Shapes provide the unique ability to search for relationships between elements and attributes as well as the elements and attributes themselves. With PI Integrator for Business Analytics you can define parents, children, and their relationship as part of the shape, as well as the more traditional template, name, and category search parameters. You can also extend the shape to find matches for assets or event frames derived from the same template.

Each shape corresponds to a respective view:

• Asset shapes contain the assets, attributes, and their relationships in asset views.

• Streaming and asset shapes are created in the same way. The views differ in the Message Designer: asset views are presented in a tabular format and streaming views are presented in attribute-value pairs format.

• Event shapes contain event frames, event frame attributes, referenced elements, and referenced element attributes in event views.