Article
GPU-accelerated visualization of historical wildfire events with temporal geospatial data integration
MethodsX
— 2026 — Elsevier
Key information
Authors:
Published in
December 2026
Abstract
Wildfires severely affect ecosystems and populations. Reconstructing documented fires helps emergency services study hazards and train responders. Many current tools are difficult to integrate and lack real-time performance across scenarios. This paper presents a GPU-accelerated Unity system for replaying and rendering documented wildfire events with temporal precision. The proposed method is a visualization pipeline for historical fire records—not a fire propagation model—using recorded rather than computed ignition and extinction times. It integrates geospatial processing, particle rendering, and temporal event modeling for fire behavior analysis. The system processes historical data chronologically, transforms geographic coordinates to maintain spatial fidelity, and renders fire stages with terrain-aligned particles. It incorporates wind data and applies performance optimizations including object pooling and GPU-accelerated particle rendering. Results illustrate reconstruction of documented fire patterns with stable, real-time frame rates in high-density scenarios, highlighting applicability for scientific analysis and training.
Publication details
Authors in the community:
Nuno Fachada
ist145239
Publication version
VoR - Version of Record
Publisher
Elsevier
Link to the publisher's version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mex.2026.104080
Title of the publication container
MethodsX
First page or article number
104080
Volume
17
ISSN
2215-0161
Fields of Science and Technology (FOS)
computer-and-information-sciences - Computer and information sciences
Keywords
- Historical wildfire reconstruction
- Geodetic coordinate transformation
- Wind data integration
- Particle-based rendering
- Object pooling
- Real-time rendering
Publication language (ISO code)
eng - English
Rights type:
Open access
Creative Commons license
CC-BY - Attribution
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: INESC INOV – Laboratório de Investigação & Desenvolvimento
Funding Stream: Avaliação UID 2023/2024
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/06486/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: INESC INOV – Laboratório de Investigação & Desenvolvimento
Funding Stream: Avaliação UID 2023/2024 PRR
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/PRR/06486/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: INESC INOV – Laboratório de Investigação & Desenvolvimento
Funding Stream: EQUIPAR +2 - UID.PRR2
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/PRR2/06486/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: 2023.15441.TENURE.051/CP00003/CT00029
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: LASIGE Centro de Investigação em Ciência e Engenharia da Computação
Funding Stream: Avaliação UID 2023/2024
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/00408/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: LASIGE Centro de Investigação em Ciência e Engenharia da Computação
Funding Stream: Avaliação UID 2023/2024 PRR
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/PRR/00408/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: Centro de Tecnologias e Sistemas (CTS)
Funding Stream: Avaliação UID 2023/2024
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: UID/00066/2025
Financing entity
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia
Title of the project, award or grant: A computational pipeline for modeling and predicting wildfire behavior
Funding Stream: CEEC INST 2ed
Identifier for the funding entity: https://doi.org/10.13039/501100001871
Type of identifier of the funding entity: Crossref Funder
Number for the project, award or grant: CEECINST/00002/2021/CP2788/CT0001
Financing entity
Instituto Lusófono de Investigação e Desenvolvimento
Title of the project, award or grant: FireGuard: Fire Management with Autonomous UAV Navigation
Funding Stream: Seed Funding
Identifier for the funding entity: https://isni.org/isni/0000000458956849
Type of identifier of the funding entity: ISNI
Number for the project, award or grant: COFAC/ILIND/COPELABS/1/2024