NASA 'Shoots' for Crime Investigators with New Technology
What do a NASA engineer and a detective have in common? The answer is a new NASA photographic laser device that helps look for damages on NASA’s Space Shuttle that can also be used to "shoot" more details in crime scenes. The Laser Scaling Device attaches directly to a camera and projects a pattern of dots into the field of view. This pattern appears in the photograph along with the image of the object under investigation, enabling the viewer to measure the size of the object. The greatest contribution that the Laser Scaling Measurement software offers to law enforcement is it ‘un-cuffs’ the investigators hands with digital image evidence by facilitating fast and accurate measurement analysis of anything in a crime scene photo, not just the intended target. This aspect opens up the possibility for serendipitous evidence detection after the fact that may not have been obvious at the crime scene. For example, the software may be instrumental in attaining dimensions of articles or their proximity locations within a room that were not previously part of the investigation.Not only can they use it to fully view photos of components from crime scenes such as blood-spatter pattern and graffiti, but can also see the images from different angles (including diagonally, horizontally and vertically) to better analyze and understand the scenes.In fact, just recently, Ballard was asked by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to add more capabilities to the LSMDPI software to enable forensics experts to zoom in and out of the image to measure blood spatter details across a wall as well as specific areas. more on this article http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2005/crime_technology.html