Energy Visualization Project at the University of Calgary

News

Join us on Oct. 3, 2019 at the Calgary Central Library [PDF Poster]:
- Make a Digital Data Clipping! 10am – 7:30pm. Make, share, and discover snippets of data visualizations using a tool inspired by newspaper clippings. Get started now at pxlclpr.com, download the tool, see clippings from past events, and explore the visualizations!
- Welcome to the Angels’ Den 12:15 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. Calgary grade nine students will pitch ideas on energy entrepreneurism, clean technology, sustainable projects and more to a panel of expert Angels, vying to become Canada’s next successful startup.
- Think TED Talks, only faster. 6 p.m. – 7:30 p.m. Local energy and data visualization experts will share stories in a lightning round of presentations. The wide variety of thought-provoking topics will include: solar energy potential in Canada, the importance of art in visual data, technological innovation in the energy industry, and more.
Our VIS 2019 paper, "Data Changes Everything: Challenges and Opportunities in Data Visualization Design Handoff," has won a Best Paper Award! We will present the paper in October at the IEEE VIS 2019 conference in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
We presented a demo at the 2018 ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems: Democratizing Open Energy Data for Public Discourse using Visualization.
We published a journal paper in the IEEE Transactions on Visualization and Computer Graphics: Exploration Strategies for Discovery of Interactivity in Visualizations.
Our newest Energy Futures visualization, Changing Demand Shares, is live!

Our Work

Explore our work so far:

Energy Futures

Based on data from the CER's Energy Futures reports, these visualizations allow you to explore energy production and consumption trends and forecast them into the future.

Explore the visualization View source code on GitHub

Pipeline Incidents

This visualization allows you to explore data about incidents that have occurred at CER-regulated pipelines and facilities since 2008.

Explore the Visualization Learn more (World Design Summit presentation slides) View source code on GitHub

Imports and Exports

This online tool portrays imports and exports of energy products to and from Canada. This visualization show quarterly energy trade data between Canada and the U.S. since 1985, with the exception of electricity data which is available back to 1990.

Explore the visualization View source code on GitHub

Data visualization design process and challenges

Data Changes Everything

In this research project, we explore how data visualization design is not like interaction design. By reflecting on our experiences designing visualizations, we find six data-related challenges in visualization design.

Find the pre-print on arXiv.org View the 30-second preview video

Making an impact on the world

The CER visualizations have already won a federal award, when the NEB (now called CER) was awarded the 2016 Regulatory Excellence Award for Contribution to Innovation in the Regulatory Field. The visualizations we create will be released to the public, and we will interview stakeholders to make sure their needs are addressed. The visualizations provide us with a way to study the impact of visualizations on making open data accessible, and provide us with many challenges that require cutting-edge research and have significant potential for high-quality research output.