Sankey Diagrams
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Sankey diagrams are flow diagrams where the width of the arrows is proportionally to the quantity of the flow. This type of drawing is becoming very popular and you will find examples everywhere. For many presentations, a simple technique, like including a Sankey Diagram to highlight/demonstrate a key feature or overview is as they say “worth a thousand words”. I have found the use of Sankey visually informative beyond any other methods to display complex flows, typically energy or mass but can be used for much more.
Sankey diagrams are named after Irish Captain Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey. In 1898 he published the first energy flow diagram that later became known as
“Sankey diagram”.
Examples:
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Links & Software:
- e!Sankey 2.5 (website) – This is the software that I recommend. There is a learning curve (future Tutorial will be added here) but is not overly difficult once you learn it. The “pro” version contains an Excel LiveLink where you can dynamically link your spreadsheet to your Sankey diagram, then any changes made in excel will also appear in the Sankey diagram.
- Sankey Diagrams (website) – A blog site exclusively focused on Sankey diagrams, by Phineas (note that Phineas is also one of the middle names of the originator, Matthew Henry Phineas Riall Sankey).
- Sankey Helper: Sankey diagrams in Excel (website) – If you would rather draw your Sankey diagrams with excel then this site is for you. You will need to send the creator, Gabor Doka, one of your diagrams.
- Sankey Diagram Shapes for Visio (website) – Visio Guy has a section for using MicroSoft’s Visio to create Sankey diagrams. There are also some examples from the web. Visio Guy offers a download: Sankey Diagram Shapes.zip (62 KB).