Inside the Maui Inferno

2023   ·   The New York Times   ·   3D   Data-Visualization   Maps   Shaders   Web

A New York Times investigation reconstructing the deadly 2023 Maui wildfire hour by hour, published as an interactive web article.

During R&D for the project, I prototyped a system for loading and rendering Google’s recently released Photorealistic 3D Map Tiles using NASA’s open source loader, and wrote custom-shading for look development.

👤 Role: Software Engineer, R&D, Prototyping

🏆 Awards: Peabody Award, Immersive & Interactive, 2024.

👥 Credit: Mike Baker and Bedel Saget reported from Lahaina, Hawaii. Additional production by Jon Huang, Mark McKeague, Nicholas Bartzokas and Mika Gröndahl. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs, Serge Kovaleski, Corina Knoll, Tim Arango and Matthew DeKneef. Additional research was contributed by Dahlia Kozlowsky and Judson Jones.