The PCA Procedure

The PCA procedure performs principal component analysis in SAS Viya.

Principal component analysis is a multivariate technique for examining relationships among several quantitative variables. It provides an optimal way to reduce dimensionality by projecting the data onto a lower-dimensional orthogonal subspace that explains as much variation as possible in those variables. The choice between using factor analysis and using principal component analysis depends in part on your research objectives. You should use the PCA procedure if you are interested in summarizing data and detecting linear relationships. You can use principal component analysis to reduce the number of variables in regression, clustering, and so on.