Thinning of Scalar Vibration Data

A process for thinning scalar machine vibration data can reduce the amount of data storage required to store the data by several orders of magnitude, without losing any important machine diagnostic vibration information. The process assumes that because each scalar vibration measurement value has its own range of values, there is a unique delta change in value that does not significantly impact machine diagnostic information provided by the data. Some embodiments provide a method to automatically evaluate the delta change in value. The process can be used to thin data that have already been stored in a database, and also to thin the data in real-time during data collection. Data storage structures for storing the thinned scalar values and processes for displaying a trend plot to indicate where the scalar data have been thinned are also described.