Model Visualization¶

Model Visualization – figure 1

Information visualization has proved to be one of the effective techniques for exploratory data analysis. It involves visual representation of large-scale collections of information and use of graphical techniques to help people understand and analyze the data. Experiences have shown that humans can absorb and analyze visual information much more quickly than they can absorb data in traditional presentation formats such as tabular displays. Visual presentation of data facilitates information exploration and enables knowledge discovery.

Built upon CIM, the Tool supports interactive visualization of power grids. A variety of data-driven techniques are applied to auto-generate the high-quality visualization displays, enabling users to visualize the power system’s physical and electrical configurations at various levels and from different perspectives. Furthermore, by leveraging the latest-and-greatest information visualization technologies and open industry standards, the Tool is aimed to deliver rich user experience and provide a standard-based visualization solution that can be seamlessly integrated with the existing utility information infrastructure.

The visualization function of the Tool was designed to support multiple business functions in an electric utility environment. The identified business use cases, some of which have been put into practical use, include:

Facilitating power system model exchange - Utilities that exchange their operational/planning models can leverage this tool to understand different configurations of the power system in their neighboring utilities. This is the main use case as of now.
Interpretation of real-time and analytical results - Analytical results, including planning, operational, and marketing, etc., can be intuitively displayed on top of the generated network diagram to facilitate interpretation. Because the tool is data-driven and based on CIM, it requires minimum effort to build a customized tool and seamlessly integrate it with the existing utility information infrastructure to enable visualization of a power grid and its operations.
Speeding up operator display building - For EMS display designers, this tool can perform majority of the tedious work for them. All they need to do is simply adjusting the auto-generated diagrams for better look-and-feel and then fixing the adjusted to create operator displays.
Assisting application development - A user-driven graphical tool will significantly facilitate development and debugging of network applications.

Methodology¶

Behind the visualization function of the Tool is a technique called Query-driven visualization, which combines the data management technology and the data-driven visualization technique and enables users to limit the visualization to the “interesting” data. Users define the “interesting” data using formulated queries. Several factors contribute to the overall motivation for the query-driven visualization approach. As data grows larger and more complex, simply building larger, more scalable visualization systems produces a greater amount of output, which in turn increases the cognitive load on the viewer. In some cases, increasing the amount of visible output may actually hinder understanding. Similarly, with increasing data size and complexity, finding and displaying relevant data becomes increasingly important to foster scientific understanding and insight.

Query-driven visualization focuses on presenting “interesting data” in large, multidimensional collections of information. The technique provides design patterns for formulation of the “interesting data” definition, finding the “interesting data” quickly, and effective visual presentation of “interesting data”. Query-driven visualization is well suited for performing analysis and visualization on datasets which are both large and highly complex.

Overview of Subtopics¶

Graphical Symbols