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divingdingo
11-29-2007, 03:33 AM
does anyone know anything about PCA and any add-ins for excel (preferably free ones! i am a student after all!)

anyway, i'm trying to analyse the correlation between wind speed and wind direction over time at two different locations, and i think i need to use this analysis. i've tried google but i see so many equations out there and as my maths is very rusty at best i was wondering if anyone knew any good sources for what i'm trying to do.

regards

mark

Sowanso
11-29-2007, 04:56 AM
Hi Mark,

Have you tried Analysis ToolPak, which comes as an add-in with every installation of MS Excel and only needs to be activated via Tools/Add-Ins menu? It should help you at least with some basic calculations of your analysis..

Best regards,
Ondrej

tpoynton
11-29-2007, 06:48 AM
Excel is a swiss army knife of sorts, but I'd recommend going into your university computer lab and using SPSS.

divingdingo
11-29-2007, 07:26 AM
Excel is a swiss army knife of sorts, but I'd recommend going into your university computer lab and using SPSS.

damn it i was hoping someone wasn't going to say that. it's just all my other analysis techniques are on excel and i've written loads of macros to automate them. i was hoping that i could avoid using different software if possible.

i know spss is probably better for the PCA but for the other stuff i do, excel works for me.

regs
mark

unmarkedhelicopter
11-29-2007, 07:32 AM
What are you a student of ?

divingdingo
11-29-2007, 07:33 AM
MSC of applied marine science. plymouth uni. was doing a project on offshore windfarms.

unmarkedhelicopter
11-29-2007, 11:54 AM
And your maths is rusty ??? is that from the brine ?

tpoynton
11-29-2007, 12:21 PM
there are addins you can buy, so it can be done! I think I looked for some stuff once and found some spreadsheets

google "principal components analysis filetype:xls" and hopefully that can get you started

divingdingo
11-29-2007, 01:43 PM
And your maths is rusty ??? is that from the brine ?


The most embarrassing part is that I graduated as an engineer! Although my excuse is that it was ten years back now and the intermediate time has taken its toll.

Plus there are so many different types of correlations for different environmental variables that I get confused between them all and knowing which one to use is half the battle.
my hope was that an add-in had already been developed for excel. That maybe allows me to intergrate in with what I've already done for my project.

Anyway- I'm off to investigate the net for a while...sometimes its too easy to take advantage of such a great forum, better go and excercise my grey matter for a change rather than others!;)
kind regards
mark