A Novel Visualization Method of Power
Transmission Lines
Shuwei Pei
1
, Xiaofu Huang
1
, Bin Sheng
1,2
, Lizhuang Ma
1
, Dan Wu
3
,Ping Li
4
1
Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
2
State Key Lab. of Computer Science, Inst. of Software, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China
3
Information Center, China Southern Power Grid Co., Ltd. Guangzhou, China
4
Department of Mathematics and Information Technology, Hong Kong Institute of Education, Hong Kong, China
e-mail: youyoupei2013@163.com
Abstract—Visualization plays an important role in the analysis of
grid circuit topological structure. The traditional line
visualization method based on geographical position usually
contains such problems that the nodes density distribution is
uneven and the lines are too complex to understand. Some other
methods completely neglect the real geographic location
information. In this paper, we propose a new visualization
method by adjustment of the nodes’ location and optimization of
drawing lines. Initially, the scheduling substation node is
designed as the central node, the other nodes are divides into
different groups by k-means++ cluster algorithm. Next, the
location of the nodes is adjusted and optimized after clustering,
and the data density is balanced. Finally, the nodes are connected
with the colored lines of ring or radial structure. Experimental
results show that our visualization method can more clearly show
the topological structure of the current power transmission lines
and retain the main geographical location information.
Keywords-geographic; visualization; lines
I. INTRODUCTION
With the development of power system, the electric power
network is more and more complicated. Visualization system
can transfer the complex data into the image which can be
visually displayed and easily understood. Visualization of
power transmission lines plays a key role in the analysis of
power grid topology relations. The application of visualization
is a significant part in smart grid.
The most exiting visualization methods of power
transmission lines usually show a complex circuit topology
diagram in a real geographical map. These methods create a
graphical picture of electric power transmission network
flowers and voltages. The complex diagram is usually hard to
be observed and understood because the substation density
distribution is always uneven and the lines may overlap in the
real world.
In this work, we provide a new visualization method of
power transmission lines. It optimizes the graphics by proper
adjustment of the node position and retains the node real
geographic information as much as possible. The new method
balances the design in terms of data density [1]. The scheduling
node is designed as the center of the visual topology. The lines
are shown as a ring around the center node. This method
increases the local symmetry displayed in the map and
understandability of the graph [2] [3]. Our visualization method
of power transmission lines balances the substation density in
the map. We connect the substation nodes in the map by
special ways in order to avoid cross lines. It is useful to give
the specific abridged general view or the sketch map of the
electric grid by our method.
II. R
ELATED WORK
Recently, many visualization methods have been proposed
to visualize the power transmission lines. These techniques can
be roughly categorized into two ways. One is based on the true
geographic topology information, this method is widely used.
The other method completely neglects the geographic topology
information to meet some specific needs.
The traditional visualization method of grid lines is directly
shows topology information in a real geographic map. The true
topology of grid can be accurately described by this method.
The methods of color contour map, dynamic map and three-
dimensional map are based on the traditional method [4]. The
common point of these methods is that the power grid graph is
drawn based on geographic locations (of electrical buses and
transmission lines between them) .But it may not necessarily
represent the most desirable visualization [5].If the topological
relations between the nodes are not optimized with the specific
application, the true complex grid graph is usually hard to
observed. The data information of the power network are not
clearly displayed due to the node intensive or the overlap lines.
If we want more details to appear we should enlarge the picture.
But comprehension and detailed analysis of data in graph
structures is easiest when the size of the displayed graph is
small [6].
Grid data can be presented in different ways by using
different processing modes of geographic information. Some
certain grid visualization methods completely neglect the real
geographic information, such as Sugiyama algorithm for
drawing a compound directed graph. Sugiyama algorithm for
layered graph drawing is commonly used in practical software.
In this method vertices are drawn as rectangles, inclusion edges
are expressed by inclusive relations among the rectangles, and
adjacency edges by arrows connecting the corresponding pairs
of vertices [7]. Aesthetic criteria and quality measures for good
drawings have been established and algorithms for their
automatic construction have been developed. Relevant
2015 IEEE International Conference on Multimedia Big Data
978-1-4799-8688-0/15 $31.00 © 2015 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/BigMM.2015.11
358