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 Led by researcher Lars Ebert, the team at the university's Institute
of Forensic Medicine, have created what they say is the first system
in the world to visualize the 3D data of forensic scans. The team's
creation, called the Forensic Holodeck, could be used in criminal
trials by offering accurate three-dimensional interpretations of
CCTV footage. The team has already been called upon by Swiss
prosecutors to help convict a gunman who fired at police in an
internet cafe.
The system uses an Oculus Rift headset, in conjunction with an
optical tracker called OptiTrack. A 3D scanner, Autodesk 3DS Max
software, and Unity 3D gaming software help the team create their
forensic reconstructions.
Radiologist Steffen Ross says the department's other invention - the
Virtobot - is already used to provide virtual autopsies of bodies,
without the need to open them up.
"The first step would be to do the data acquisition which we use a
3D scanner for," said Ross. "We scan the crime scene and we are also
able to scan the dead body, if there is a dead body involved, and
then we can put all the data together in the computer and create a
virtual crime scene, which is a 3D model of the crime scene, so a
re-enactment of the crime."
Ross insists the Forensic Holodeck is unique. "It's the first system
ever used in the whole world to visualize the 3D data of forensic
scans in this way, so nobody else ever did it before," he told
Reuters.
Creating a 3D immersive system to virtually transport judges, police
officers, barristers, and potentially a jury inside a crime scene
could be enormously beneficial, Ross believes. The system was used
last year to help convict a suspect who fired a series of gunshots
at officers in an internet cafe, one of which hit a policeman's
hand.
The scene had been recorded by a CCTV camera. This video footage
allowed the 3D reconstruction of the scene and to pinpoint the
trajectory of each shot, which could be seen inside the lenses of an
Oculus Rift headset. The reconstruction showed just how close the
bullet trajectories came to seriously injuring the officer. The
gunman subsequently received an eleven year jail term for the
shooting.
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"The actual result we had is a case of a reconstruction of bullet
trajectories. So we placed the people in the room and we were able
to have a much better look at the trajectories of the projectiles,
than we were able to see it in a two-dimensional manner," explained
Ross.
The Oculus Rift headset measures the wearer's orientation in real
time, allowing for calculation of the scene with the correct
perspective.
Ross says forensic work is far from the only potential use of the
holodeck. "The gaming industry is a real big area," he said. "You
get completely immersed into gaming scenes and you can interact with
the right controller with the scene you are playing and also kind of
rapid prototyping, so I think of automobile industry or something
like that, where you want to see 3D structures, 3D models."
Colleague Robert Breitbeck says their Virtobot system also has
multiple uses. "We have our Virtobot system with an industrial
scanner and with this equipment we can scan the skin with the
pattern injury in color and true to scale so we can store it, and
later we can combine it with 3D data which the police scans together
with us and with this 3D data we have a basis we can do the 3D
reconstructions or visualizations of murder cases or traffic
accidents," said Breitbeck.
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