Interactive navigation environment for building performance visualization

• US 8,947,437 B2
• Filed: 09/15/2012
• Issued: 02/03/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 09/15/2012
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Original Assignee: Honeywell International Inc.
• Inventors: Garr, Matthew E., Rojicek, Jiri, Bicik, Vladimir, Foslien, Wendy
• Primary Examiner(s): McDowell, Jr., Maurice L
• Application Number:
  US13/621,188
• Publication Number:
  US 20140078151A1
• Time in Patent Office: 871 Days
• Field of Search: 345/440, 700/276, 700/277, 707/600, 707/797, 715/853
• US Class Current: 345/440
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 15/02 electric
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/2642 Domotique, domestic, home control, automation, smart house
• CPC Class Codes: G05D 23/1917 using digital means
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/283 Multi-dimensional databases or data warehouses, e.g. MOLAP or ROLAP
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

A tool for providing a visualization of a system may reveal an interactive navigation environment for building performance observation and assessment. The tool may be associated with a processor. The environment may incorporate a treemap, a graph pane, a treemap filter, a graph pane selector, a selected units box and a date/time control mechanism. A visualization of the environment, among other things, may be presented on a display. The treemap may exhibit a building geometry and/or equipment units hierarchically, along with some data information. Units may be interactively selected from the treemap and placed in the box for analysis. The graph pane may show a configuration and display of unit analysis. Selection of detailed views for units in the box may be provided by the graph pane selector. Date and time intervals for analysis may be selected by the control mechanism.

Claims

1. An interactive navigation environment system comprising:

a data warehouse;

a processor connected to the data warehouse;

heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment sensors connected to the data warehouse; and

a visualization tool connected to the processor and the data warehouse; and

wherein;

the visualization tool comprises;

a treemap; and

a graph pane;

the treemap is a visualization of a hierarchical structure comprising items representing building geometry and HVAC equipment; and

the graph pane provides one or more presentations of analysis pertaining to one or more items selected from the treemap.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein:

the visualization tool further comprises;

a treemap filter;

a selected units box; and

a graph pane selector;

the treemap filter permits selection of an analytic and/or system type for determining which items are to be displayed in the treemap;

the selected units box is a container for items chosen for analysis; and

a graph pane selector provides for selection of various presentations in the graph pane of the analysis of items in the selected units box.

3. The system of claim 2, the visualization tool further comprises a date and time control mechanism for selection of data/time intervals for presentations of an analysis of the items.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the treemap displays an organizational structure of the items according to one or more hierarchies.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the hierarchies comprise:

a building geometry hierarchy; and

an HVAC equipment hierarchy.

6. The system of claim 5, wherein a treemap having the organizational structure according to the building geometry hierarchy, comprises:

a first level showing a viewed enterprise;

a second level showing individual sites; and

a third level showing building structures within the sites.

7. The system of claim 6, wherein:

a fourth level showing floors of the building structures is achieved by drill down on the treemap for more detail;

a fifth level showing zones to the floors is achieved by a drill down; and

existing sixth and further levels beyond a preceding level showing more detail are achieved by drill down.

8. The system of claim 5, wherein:

the building geometry hierarchy and the HVAC equipment hierarchy are interconnected;

clicking on a floor in an organizational structure of the treemap and selecting show-linked HVAC equipment items, provide information of the HVAC equipment items on the floor;

upon clicking on the floor, the floor becomes a first level of the organizational structure of the treemap;

HVAC equipment items that serve the floor are children of the floor; and

other HVAC equipment items linked to the HVAC equipment items that serve the floor are children of the HVAC equipment items.

9. The system of claim 4, wherein:

the information about the organizational structure is presented in the graph pane as a summary view, a detail view or a combination of the summary and detail views; and

the summary view, the detail view or the combination of the summary and detail views is selected from a group consisting of bar charts, heatmap timeline plots, pie charts, listings and profiles.

10. The system of claim 4, wherein clicking on an item on the treemap results in a drill down to move a clicked-on item to a top level of a displayed hierarchy.

11. The system of claim 4, wherein items of the organizational structure of the treemap indicate a fault relevancy of the respective items in the treemap.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein:

fault relevancy of an item is indicated in the treemap;

items in the treemap having fault relevancy of X or greater are selected by a treemap filter set to a minimum fault relevancy of X percent;

X ranges from zero to 100; and

X of an item at a particular moment is determined by a number of faults that occur relative to the item during a fixed period of time up to the particular moment.

13. A method for navigating an interactive environment having a visualization of heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) performance within an enterprise, comprising:

providing a treemap having a hierarchal structure of an enterprise comprising units;

providing a graph pane;

providing a selected units box;

providing a treemap filter;

providing a graph pane selector;

using the treemap filter to choose an analytic and/or system type to determine the hierarchal structure and/or color code of symbols representing the units of the hierarchal structure;

choosing units for analysis and placing the units in the selected units box; and

/or

using the graph pane selector to choose detailed or summary views of results from analysis of the units in the selected units box; and

wherein one or more elements of the present method are performed by a computer.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein:

the treemap is placed in a first visualization area of a display; and

the graph pane is placed in a second visualization area of the display.

15. The method of claim 14, further comprising:

providing a mechanism for a selection of date/time intervals for the analysis of units; and

placing the treemap filter and the graph pane selector on an area of the display.

16. The method of claim 13, wherein:

units of the treemap are filtered according to a minimum fault relevancy setpoint between zero and 100 percent;

the minimum fault relevancy setpoint can be adjusted on the display;

units having a fault relevancy greater than the fault relevancy setpoint are displayed in the treemap; and

a fault relevancy of a unit is determined by a number of faults that occur relative to the unit over a given period of time.

17. A system having an interactive navigation environment for building energy performance visualization, comprising:

a treemap filter;

a treemap having a configuration determined at least in part according to the treemap filter;

a selected units box having a collection of entities comprising buildings, components, zones or the like of the treemap, chosen for analysis;

a graph pane selector; and

a graph pane; and

wherein;

the graph pane displays results of an analysis of entities in the collection of entities in one or more formats selected from a group of formats consisting of bar graphs, pie charts, line trend plots, heatmap timelines and other formats; and

the analysis is provided by a processor.

18. The system of claim 17, wherein:

the treemap reveals an enterprise of entities hierarchically in geometrical symbols on a display;

each of the symbols indicates one or more summary data values for an entity represented by the respective symbol;

summary data values comprise an attribute, property and/or fault relevancy of the entity;

a size of a symbol indicates an attribute, property, and/or fault relevancy of the entity represented by the symbol;

a color of a symbol indicates an attribute, property, and/or fault relevancy of the entity represented by the symbol; and

a symbol representing an entity can contain one or more symbols representing entities within the entity.

19. The system of claim 18, wherein:

one or more symbols, representing one or more entities, respectively, can be dragged from the treemap to the selected units box on the display; and

one or more symbols within a symbol being dragged, can also be dragged along with the symbol to the selected units box; and

information about entities represented by the symbols, including entities represented by symbols within a symbol, in the selected units box is displayed on the graph pane.

20. The system of claim 18, wherein:

a clicking on a symbol representing a first entity can result in a drill-down to one or more symbols within the symbol representing one or more entities within the first entity; and

fault relevancy of an entity is indicated by a number of faults occurring over a certain period of time up to a moment at which the fault relevancy is to be determined.