US Patent 7266468 Structural data analysis system

A system and method for identifying significant bivariate checkpoints. The system includes a controller configured to receive measurements for a plurality of checkpoints and calculate the covariance and correlation for each checkpoint pair. The controller identifies significant bivariate checkpoints based on the covariance between the checkpoint pairs. Further, the controller may also calculate the correlation for each checkpoint pair and identify the significant bivariate checkpoints based on a combination of the covariance and the correlation between the checkpoints. Further, the controller may rank the significant bivariate checkpoints and provide the significant bivariate checkpoints to a principal component algorithm.