Output details

Virtual Reality and 3D Animation in Forensic Visualisation

Computer-generated 3D animation is an ideal media to accurately visualise crime or accident scenes to the viewers and in the courtrooms. Based upon factual data, forensic animations can reproduce the scene and demonstrate the activity at various points in time. Using computer animation techniques to reconstruct crime scenes is beginning to replace the traditional illustrations, photographs, and verbal descriptions and becoming popular in today’s forensics. This paper integrates work in the areas of 3D graphics, computer vision, motion tracking, Natural Language Processing and forensic computing, to investigate the state-of-the-art in forensic visualisation. The research identifies and reviews areas where new applications of 3D digital technologies and Artificial Intelligence could be used to enhance particular phases of the forensic visualisation in order to create 3D models and animations automatically and quickly. Having discussed the relationships between major crime types and Level-of-Details in corresponding forensic animations, we recognised that high Level-of-Detail animation involving human characters, which is appropriate for many major crime types but is used limitedly in courtrooms, could be useful for crime investigation. This article provided a theoretical framework and research agenda for integrating 3D visualisation technologies and Artificial Intelligence with forensic sciences. It identified important areas that need research and development as well as possible new synergies that can be explored in existing areas. Despite the fact that the work was formally published in 2010, it has already had a good number of citations. I was invited to present a keynote on this topic at the Jury Symposium - Visual Evidence at Open University.