Tidak ada nomor tunggal yang mencakup semua informasi kovarian - ada 6 informasi, jadi Anda akan selalu membutuhkan 6 angka.
Namun ada beberapa hal yang bisa Anda pertimbangkan untuk dilakukan.
Pertama, kesalahan (varians) dalam arah tertentu , diberikan olehi
σ2i=e⊤iΣei
Di mana adalah vektor satuan dalam arah yang menarik.ei
Sekarang jika Anda melihat ini untuk tiga koordinat dasar Anda (x,y,z)
σ2x=⎡⎣⎢100⎤⎦⎥⊤⎡⎣⎢σxxσyxσxzσxyσyyσyzσxzσyzσzz⎤⎦⎥⎡⎣⎢100⎤⎦⎥=σxx
σ2y=σyy
σ2z=σzz
So the error in each of the directions considered separately is given by the diagonal of the covariance matrix. This makes sense intuitively - if I am only considering one direction, then changing just the correlation should make no difference.
You are correct in noting that simply stating:
x=μx±σx
y=μx±σy
z=μz±σz
Does not imply any correlation between those three statement - each statement on its own is perfectly correct, but taken together some information (correlation) has been dropped.
If you will be taking many measurements each with the same error correlation (supposing that this comes from the measurement equipment) then one elegant possibility is to rotate your coordinates so as to diagonalise your covariance matrix. Then you can present errors in each of those directions separately since they will now be uncorrelated.
As to taking the "vector error" by adding in quadrature I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. These three errors are errors in different quantities - they don't cancel each other out and so I don't see how you can add them together. Do you mean error in the distance?