Electric power generation and distribution systems involve access to and manipulation of large amounts of multivariate data. Visualization of these data is a difficult problem; yet visualization is essential for modern control and planning operations. The objective of this research program is to explore the viability of using parallel coordinates as an alternative to more traditional visualization paradigms. Important issues include whether parallel coordinates can ease the tasks of power plant operators by allowing more data to visualized in one view than would be possible using conventional three dimensional graphical space.

Recognizing that the parallel coordinates paradigm involves an unfamiliar visualization model, its potential value will depend on whether there is sufficient advantage in being able to access large amounts of data in a single view to overcome the problems associated with the unfamiliarity. In order to study these issues, we undertook a program that

• modified the SCENE visualization tools to incorporate parallel coordinate based visualization.
• applied these visualization tools to the power generation (thermodynamic cycle) aspects of power production/distribution.

The continuing objectives of the program include application of parallel coordinate based visualization to data access and control of power distribution networks, including visualization of optimization models. In order to support more extensive evaluation of parallel coordinate visualization applied to power distribution, the software tools are being ported to Java so that they will be network accessible and cross platform portable.