TransCAD

Working with Matrices

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Matrices
Matrices can contain data that are essential for
transportation applications, but do not fit comfortably
into spreadsheets or databases. TransCAD provides a
broad and powerful set of tools for storing, displaying,
editing, and manipulating data in matrix form.
A Matrix contains rows and columns. Each row is
identified by a row ID, and each column by a column
ID. Each entry in the matrix is called a cell and has a
value that describes something about the row and
column.
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Matrices
TransCAD stores matrices in a matrix file. A matrix
file contains one or more matrices, each of which
contains the exact same set of rows and columns.
You can use TransCAD to create, modify, and edit
matrix files of any size. In addition, many
TransCAD modes and procedures create matrix
files as output. For example:

The multiple shortest path procedure can create a matrix

file showing the distance between a set of origins and a
set of destinations.
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Creating Matrices
You create a new, empty matrix file by choosing the
following:

The layer or dataview on which the matrix file is built

The dataview field you want to use to identify the rows
and columns of the matrix file
Which features or records from the dataview should
appear in the matrix file

You must choose one numeric field from the layer

or dataview to use as the ID for the rows and
columns of the matrix file.
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To Create a New Matrix File

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To Add a Matrix to a Matrix

File

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To Change the Matrix Labels

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To Display Matrix Row and

Column Marginals

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To Sort a Matrix View

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To Find a Cell in a Matrix

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To Change the Font, Format,

and Other Settings

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To Fill Cells with a Single

Value

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To Fill a Matrix Cell by Cell

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To Fill a Matrix with a Formula

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To Fill a Matrix Using Vector

Multiplication

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To Update a Matrix

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To Append Matrices to a Matrix

File

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To Sum All the Matrices in a

Matrix File

Summarize two
Matrices

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To Add a Matrix Index

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To Display a Portion of a
Matrix

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To Create Desire Lines

(Desire.wrk)

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To Impost a Dataview into a

Matrix
Activate a dataview first

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To Export a Matrix to a New

Table
Activate a Matrix first

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To Copy a Matrix File

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To Transpose a Matrix File

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To Combine Matrix Files

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To Perform Matrix
Multiplication

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Options for Storing Matrix

TransCAD has a number of options for how matrices are
stored and accessed. When you are creating a new matrix
file you may want to use these options to reduce the disk
space requirements for large matrix files, or to increase the
speed of access for certain operations. There are four
settings you can control:

How values are stored in the file

Whether values are loaded into memory or accessed from disk
Whether the values are stored in a compact or expanded format
Whether values are stored in row or column order
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