1. A method comprising: associating a placeholder node with a parent node in a lattice-based database based on user input, the placeholder node being configured at a different dimensional position of the lattice-based database than the parent node and representing an insertion point for additional child nodes of the parent node, wherein identical placeholder nodes are each associated with multiple parent nodes; generating a set of child nodes, each child node being associated with the parent node and being inserted into the insertion point of the placeholder node; and distributing, by a processing device, data from the parent node into the set of child nodes, wherein the placeholder node comprises a function which operates on the data distributed from the parent node into the set of child nodes.