New Zealand’s leading forensic agency has revealed its latest crime fighting tool, and it’s taken it one step closer to a real-life version of CSI.
The $70,000 Focus3D X 130 high-speed 3D laser scanner “sends out a laser that bounces off all surfaces in the room,” digitally recreating a crime scene up to 130 metres away. It also produces a 3D photograph.
“It leaves no question as to where an item was placed when the crime scene was first discovered,” Jason Barr, a forensic scientist at the Institute of Environmental Science and Research told ONE News.
“It allows us to take the jury back to that crime scene, stand in the middle of the room, and be able to see the flight path of blood or bullet projectiles,”
“It allows them to more easily understand what’s happened.”
First introduced in 2012, laser scanning is already used as a tool to help solve around three crimes a month in New Zealand.
Evidence produced from scanning was used in five High Court trials last year.
“Previously we’d represent [gunshots] using string lining, now we can represent it in three dimensions,” says Mr Barr.
ESR’s forensic programme manager, Dr Jill Vintiner, says the technology has come far in the past 10-years, allowing results to come through “faster, simpler and easier to understand”.
The new model is the only one currently in the country, but ESR say it is compact and portable, meaning it can be taken to crime scenes across New Zealand.
Source: TVNZ