Methods for assessing potentially compromising situations of a utility company

1 . A method to assess potentially compromising situations of a utility company, comprising:

accessing one or more source displays of a site;

using a fly-out or data lensing to bring forward a portion of the source displays; and

using the fly-out or data lensing to draw attention to a potentially compromising situation, to direct the operator's attention without loosing perspective of a whole power system of the utility company.

2 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the source displays are selected from overviews and other displays.

3 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

creating the fly-out by cutting and pasting a selected area of interest from the source displays.

4 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

moving the fly-out.

5 . The method of claim 4 , further comprising:

resizing the fly-out.

6 . The method of claim 5 , further comprising:

dragging and resizing a fly-out.

7 . The method of claim 6 , further comprising:

resizing the fly-out to enhance a usability of the fly-out.

8 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

drawing one or more projection lines from the source display to the fly-out to maintain reference to the source.

9 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

using one or more projection lines to provide the operator with information about a reference source of the fly-out.

10 . The method of claim 8 , further comprising:

using the projection lines with multiple fly-outs.

11 . The method of claim 10 , further comprising:

using the projection lines to track multiple situations at the same time.

12 . The method of claim 11 , wherein the projection lines provide the operator with an awareness of a context of situations.

13 . The method of claim 1 , wherein the fly-out is a pod that is un-pinned from the source display.

14 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

using pods organized as windows to monitor specific information.

15 . The method of claim 14 , wherein the specific information is selected from at least one of, overload condition on a power system element or system condition

16 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

applying situational awareness with the fly-out.

17 . The method of claim 16 , further comprising:

allowing the operator to generate informational displays without leaving a main source display.

18 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one source display is a geographical overview with a background layer representing an aerial view of the area.

19 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one source display has a background selected from at least one of, jpegs and bitmaps.

20 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one source display background is from a geographic satellite.

21 . The method of claim 1 , wherein at least one source display has a zoom level, wherein a corresponding tile for matching background is obtained from the site.

22 . The method of claim 21 , wherein the tiles are cached for performance improvement and displayed as a background layer.

23 . The method of claim 21 , further comprising:

displaying new tiles as the operator uses the zoom level.

24 . The method of claim 23 , wherein only required tiles are loaded into memory and visible in the background.

25 . The method of claim 1 , further comprising:

adjusting an opacity of a background image.

26 . The method of claim 26 , wherein the opacity is adjusted using a sliderbar within a control that is available for invocation from an icon on a toolbar.