First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

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First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by 3DForensics »

Hello All,

I am doing some research on historical aspects of laser scanning and have information on some of the first uses of the laser scanner in forensics but since there are others out there all over the globe, I would like to know what your earliest recollection would be for the use of a laser scanner on a crime or accident scene? If you were to support this with any kind of link or documentation, that would be great!

Thanks,

Eugene
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Matt Young »

I'm not sure about the first use of laser scanning for this purpose. I do remember at a Leica Conference in San Ramon in 2006 that a Dutch company were talking about doing it. They may have been Delftech or something similar to that, hard to remember exactly their name.
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by 3DForensics »

yes, Delftech was involved early on but I think one of the earlier references was in Germany in 2004. There was also someone in the US who claimed to have scanned for collision scenes in the late 1990s but I have no backup information and so it is suspect until there is some proof.

I am hoping Leica or Z+F might be able to provide some insight...

Thanks,

Eugene
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by dan574 »

Hi Eugene,

I have access to some data from December 2005 where a Riegl scanner was used for collision scene, I think it was a Riegl LMS-Z210i. I think we even had the scanner in 2004, I would have to do some more digging if you wanted more.

cheers Daniel
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Mike Annear »

I remember working on a few from 2003 onwards.
I will dig out more info.
www.mikeannear.com/Forensic.html
I am pretty sure the West Australian Police were using 3D scanners about the same time. I was involved in an accident mock up they put together for a test in 2000.
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Oatfedgoat »

I suspect Plowman Craven in the UK were amongst the first. They did a lot of scense of crime work in the UK and were very early adopters of laser scanning in general.
Given that they were producing 3D max models back in the very early 2000's for this purpose I suspect scanners were used well before 2005 for crime scenes.

I don't recall personally scanners being on site during my time there but I am sure forum members Dave Mercel and Andrew Hunter could comment if they see this thread.
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by DavidL »

The Met Police had the tunnel scanned for the Diana inquest in 2005. Looks like a Leica HDS3000 from the picture in the link below.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews ... crash.html
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Mike Annear »

Still digging,
2003, I was working for TRL UK, I modelled this scene from Riegl laser scan data using Rhino 3D, textured and animated in 3DS Max, presented in the coroner's court on several computer monitors as real time VRML and pre-prepared AVI movies.
I will try to find the avi files.
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Mike Annear »

Site pics..
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Re: First Use of Laser Scanner for Crime Scene?

Post by Oatfedgoat »

DavidL wrote: Thu Sep 13, 2018 10:11 am The Met Police had the tunnel scanned for the Diana inquest in 2005. Looks like a Leica HDS3000 from the picture in the link below.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews ... crash.html
Nice find Dave!
I knew scanners were used on this project but just assumed that you must have used them on other scenes a few years before that.
After all, 3D Max models based upon "counting bricks" aren't quite as accurate from ones done with a laser scanner!
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