Clinical forensic height measurements on injured people using a multi camera device for 3D documentation

Till Sieberth,Barbara Fliss,Lars C Ebert,Simon Gentile

doi:10.1007/s12024-020-00282-9

Till Sieberth, Barbara Fliss + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-020-00282-9

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Abstract

Documenting the existence, size, position and shape of injuries is an important part of medical forensic examinations. In the photography of an injury, the documentation is limited to an approximation of size and position of the injury based on a ruler included in the image. The documentation of injuries can be improved with photogrammetry, which allows the creation of scaled 3D models of an injury that can be used to not only document and visualize the injury but also to match the injury with an injury-causing object. In this paper, the multicamera device “Botscan” was used to perform 3D whole-body documentation and measure the positions of injuries. A major advantage of 3D whole-body documentation compared to photography is that the former can be performed at a later stage of the investigation. This makes the whole-body 3D documentation of injuries an important tool for re-examination.

Highlights

The documentation of incidents is an important procedure in forensics [1,2,3,4]
In forensic medicine, the measurements of injury shape and positions often depend on the description of the examiner, who can only perform measurements during and after the examination based on the documentation that was performed, such as body schemes and photographs
According to internal guidelines of the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, in cases of traffic collisions, the heights of injuries are measured with a tape measure drawn out from the floor to the injury (Fig. 1)

Summary

Introduction

In forensic medicine, measurements of body height and injury positions are essential for the description and evaluation of an injury [5, 6]. In forensic medicine, the measurements of injury shape and positions often depend on the description of the examiner, who can only perform measurements during and after the examination based on the documentation that was performed, such as body schemes and photographs. According to internal guidelines of the Zurich Institute of Forensic Medicine, in cases of traffic collisions, the heights of injuries are measured with a tape measure drawn out from the floor to the injury (Fig. 1)

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