# HTM Studio categorical data

**URL:** <https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933>\
**Category:** Engineering\
**Tags:** htm\
**Created:** [October 13, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933 "2017-10-13T01:21:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![tat\_wea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@tat\_wea](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/tat_wea)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 1:21am UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933/1 "2017-10-13T01:21:30Z")

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Hi there,

I am new to HTM and currently playing with HTM Studio. Is it possible to use categorical data for HTM Studio? I have sequences of events and trying to find anomalies in those sequences.

Thank you very much!

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**Author:** ![rhyolight](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/rhyolight/32/3922_2.png) [@rhyolight](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/rhyolight)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 1:44pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933/2 "2017-10-13T13:44:32Z")

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No, it It is possible to do anomaly detection on categorical data in HTM Studio because we designed it to be an example of scalar / temporal anomaly detection. It is possible to do alter the code to make it categorical, but that adventure is yours.

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**Author:** ![tat\_wea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c37758/32.png) [@tat\_wea](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/tat_wea)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2017, 5:52pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933/3 "2017-10-13T17:52:23Z")

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@rhyolight, thank you for your quick response. Would that be inherently wrong to try to encode events with numbers: eventA -\> 10, eventB-\>20, etc. and then feed those artificial numbers to HTM Studio?

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**Author:** ![rhyolight](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex030/user_avatar/discourse.numenta.org/rhyolight/32/3922_2.png) [@rhyolight](https://discourse.numenta.org/u/rhyolight)\
**Post date:** [October 14, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://discourse.numenta.org/t/htm-studio-categorical-data/2933/4 "2017-10-14T13:23:48Z")

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It might work, but certainly not as well as proper categories.