Unit Conversions Overview

Since different languages and cultures use different methods of measuring distance, temperature, weight, and other units of measurement, the language aliasing system provides a way to convert a value to preferred units via calculation expressions.

Unit conversions

In Unit Conversions, you to define the calculations that are needed to convert values to different measurement systems.

In the example above, calculations are defined to convert kilograms to pounds for the read expression, and pounds to kilograms for the write expression. In other words, if a value in the system is in kilograms, the read expression converts it to pounds before the value is displayed in the visualization. Conversely, when writing a data value, the write expression converts the value entered in pounds to kilograms.

Unit Bindings

In Unit Bindings, you define which unit conversions are used for each language.

In the example above, the language (English) specifies that the kg-lb (kilograms to pounds) conversion should be used for mass values provided as kilograms (since the United States tend to prefer using pounds instead of kilograms). Other languages do not specify a conversion since they prefer using kilograms.

When no conversion is specified for a language, that language uses the default unit conversion that is set on the General Settings tab of the Unit Binding configuration. In this example, it is kg-kg (kilograms to kilograms), which means that the value remains unchanged.