I am working on a simulation system. I will soon have experimental data (histograms) for the real-world distribution of values for several simulation inputs. When the simulation runs, I would like to be able to produce random values that match the measured distribution. I'd prefer to do this without storing the original histograms. What are some good ways of 1. Mapping a histogram to a set of parameters representing the distribution? 2. Generating values that based on those parameters at runtime? EDIT: The input data are event durations for several different types of events. I expect that different types will have different distribution functions.
I've just read the question again, and I'm afraid I answered the title, but not the text. The text seems to ask how to guess a closed form representation for a given histogram. Different problem.