Janujah Sivanandan & Eugene Liscio
Abstract: Three-dimensional (3D) scanning is gaining popularity in several forensics and medical settings. The purpose of this study was to determine whether the Artec Eva 3D scanner is appropriate for documenting bullet trajectories and better suited than photographs or manual measurements for measuring the location and size of injuries during autopsies. Eleven injury tattoos on a live participant underwent manual measurements, digital photographs, and 3D scanning with the Eva and FARO Edge ScanArm to document injury size and location. Student’s t-tests provided p-values of 0.9513 and 0.9514 for Eva and manual measurements respectively in comparison to reference measurements from the Edge ScanArm. Eva scanning was found to be the easier method to use through a scoring system that rated technical difficulty level and documentation time. The Eva was used to scan a bullet trajectory setup and the benefits of the 3D model outweighed the time taken to create it.
Supplemental Material: Body Animation Movie