Abstract: ultidimensional” is a widely adopted modeling method in the field of data warehouse/OLAP. Here proposed are a formal definition of a user oriented multidimensional database and view model, and a method for deriving that model. Realizing that the multidimensional database is essentially different from multidimensional view,a distinction is made between these two concepts. Multidimensional database is the full description of the whole data and relations among them, while multidimensional view is just a selection and reconstruction of a multidimensional database aiming at satisfying one query task. Based on function reliance,it is pointed out that dimensions must be orthogonal from each other to avoid sparse matrix abnormality. An algorithm for dividing dimensions is also given.