A browser-based 3D viewer for Fire Dynamics Simulator (FDS) input
files and simulation outputs. Drop in any .fds file to inspect meshes,
obstructions, vents, holes, devices, slice planes, fire sources and HVAC
networks before launching a multi-hour FDS run -- then open the
simulation folder afterwards to play back smoke (.s3d), slice (.sf)
and boundary (.bf) results without leaving the browser.
Project Lead: Prof Rino Lovreglio, PhD - Massey University
Disclaimer: No responsibility is taken for the use or output of this tool. All results must be independently verified by a qualified fire engineer before use in any design or regulatory context.
Pure client-side - no installation, no build step, no backend. Parses FDS namelist input
(&MESH, &OBST, &VENT, &HOLE, &DEVC, &INIT, &GEOM, &HVAC, &ZONE, &SLCF, &SURF, &REAC, &MATL, ...).
Six pages. Pre-run: 3D Geometry (interactive Three.js scene with layer toggles, opacity, canonical views and click-to-inspect), Mesh (resolution, cell count, parallel-MPI breakdown), Fire & Combustion (burner HRR, reaction chemistry, materials), and Code (full .fds source with syntax highlighting and an in-browser linter catching 50+ rule violations). Post-run: Output (point at the simulation folder once, the viewer detects soot, slice and boundary data and lets you play back all three on the same 3D scene). And a multi-page Help / User Guide with parameter equations and worked examples.
Output visualization. WebGL2 volume-rendered smoke (.s3d) with Basic and Solid-aware (depth-sampled) modes and user-tunable transfer functions for soot and HRRPUV. Multi-mesh slice (.sf) stitching with shared colormap. Boundary patches (.bf) with per-frame auto-range colorbar.
Navigation. Standard orbit controls plus first-person Walk mode (W A S D, mouse-look, Shift run, Space jump, Esc exit) and an orthographic / perspective toggle in each 3D view. Per-axis clipping that doesn't cull edge geometry.
Quality of life. Light & dark theme. Drag-and-drop or "Open File" - multiple files in the same session. Keyboard shortcuts: W A S D move, Q E up/down, arrows rotate, 1-6 canonical views, 0 iso, R reset.
Download the latest release zip - a clean zip with no git history (recommended). All releases with per-version download counts are listed at https://github.com/ProfRino/fds-viewer/releases. To follow development: git clone https://github.com/ProfRino/fds-viewer.git
Listed on the official FDS Third-Party Tools wiki - maintained by the FDS development community (firemodels/fds, NIST).
- Download the latest release zip and unzip it (or clone the repo).
- Double-click
index.html- it opens in your default browser. - Click Load Sample, drop any
.fdsfile on the page, or use Open File. Done.
The bundled sample is embedded directly in the page, so it works offline
straight from file://. The only network call is to the Three.js CDN
(first load only - caches afterwards).
Use the live URL - no download needed, handy for sharing with colleagues: https://profrino.github.io/fds-viewer/
You can also auto-load a bundled example via the ?file= parameter:
https://profrino.github.io/fds-viewer/?file=examples/sample_room_fire.fds
The ?file= URL parameter uses fetch(), which browsers block on file:// URLs.
If you want to use that feature locally, run the included server:
on Windows double-click serve.bat (requires Python 3 on PATH), or on any OS run
python -m http.server 8765 from the repo root and open http://localhost:8765/.
For normal use (drag-drop, Open File, Load Sample) you do not need this - Option A is enough.
| Parameter | Effect |
|---|---|
?file=<path> |
Auto-load a .fds file at server-relative <path>. Requires GitHub Pages or a local server (Option B or C). Example: ?file=examples/sample_room_fire.fds |
examples/ contains nine .fds files demonstrating different FDS feature
sets (geometry primitives, terrain, extruded polygons, HVAC, fans, sphere
intersections, and a sample room-fire scenario). They are convenient sanity
inputs for the viewer - they are not intended as validated design fires.
.
├── index.html Application shell
├── css/style.css Styles (light & dark themes)
├── js/ Parser, linter, 3D viewer, Output overlays
│ ├── app.js Wiring, event handling, theme, URL params
│ ├── fds-parser.js Namelist parser
│ ├── fds-linter.js 50+ rule static validator
│ ├── viewer.js Three.js scene, walk mode, clipping
│ ├── mesh-panel.js Mesh / parallel panel
│ ├── fire-panel.js Fire & combustion panel
│ ├── output-page.js Output page wiring (smoke / slice / BNDF)
│ ├── smoke3d-*.js .s3d reader + WebGL2 volume overlay
│ ├── slice-*.js .sf reader + multi-mesh slice overlay
│ ├── boundary-*.js .bf reader + boundary patch overlay
│ └── sample-data.js Embedded sample (for offline Load Sample)
├── examples/*.fds Sample inputs (also editable on disk)
├── assets/ Demo GIFs used by this README
├── serve.bat Optional local server (only for ?file= URL params)
└── README.md
Three.js r128 is loaded from a public CDN - there is no package manager and
no node_modules. To work fully offline, download three.min.js and
OrbitControls.js and replace the two <script src="https://..."> lines near
the bottom of index.html with local paths.
MIT - see LICENSE.
Listed on the official FDS Third-Party Tools wiki maintained by the FDS development community (firemodels/fds, NIST).
If you use this tool in published work, please cite:
Lovreglio, R. FDS Viewer. Massey University. https://github.com/ProfRino/fds-viewer