How to read the portrait
The portrait is one drawing of a whole Power BI model: every table, every relationship, every measure, laid out so the shape of the model is visible before any name is read.
Where things sit
Fact tables sit on the middle disc. Each ring out = one more join away: 0 joins out, 1 join out, 2 joins out, and so on, outward. Tables joined to nothing, or only to each other, sit to the left, under their own heading: JOINED TO NOTHING — OR ONLY TO EACH OTHER.
What a table is
- sage — loaded from a database
- oat — computed from other tables (DAX or Power Query)
- cocoa — typed in by hand
- lavender — calculation group
- berry — field parameter
- muted grey — source unresolved
How big
- dot area = the table's stored data · the bigger, the paler
- inner ring = incremental refresh, thickness = its size
What grew on it
- barnacles = Power Query steps beyond the basic two, source queries included
- thorns = calculated columns, one spike each
The ropes
- a join · thick end = the many side
- keys find nothing
- flows both ways
- switched off
The measures
- one freckle = one real measure, on the table it draws most of its material from
- a grey tail = its copies, one bead each — the longer, the more costumes it wears
The rail and the panes
- index — find tables, joins, measures by name
- grain — the clicked table's columns
- DAX — the clicked thing's DAX formula
- power query — the clicked table's M code
- all — open or close every pane at once
one, both, or none — open panes sit beside each other
Show or hide
The dock above the drawing: tables · names · joins · measures · key. Hide the names before a snapshot if you would rather not show them.
Snapshots
The camera button, or Ctrl+S, saves a PNG of what is on screen: the visible part of the sheet at the current zoom, with any open pane. Every portrait and every snapshot carries the mark "lanternbi.com · drawn <date>" bottom-right.