PEC project to solve blind murders

Chandigarh, June 8 : Punjab Engineering College (PEC) has developed a 3-D Laser Scanner and a software to construct a face on a human skull, a technique they expect will assist investigation into blind murders where the accused or the remains of the victim are yet unidentified.

The project named Computerized Craniofacial Reconstruction of Human Skull, was developed by a team headed by Dr Sanjeev Sofat, Head of the Department, Computer Science and Engineering.

Ms Divya Bansal, a lecturer who was part of the project, told UNI that it took nearly two years to complete and is the first of its kind in India.

She said the equipment cost just Rs 3.5 lakh as compared to other countries like Japan, UK or USA, where it ran into crores of rupees.

To make it cost viable, Ms Bansal informed that most of the parts were sourced from other devices, like the vertical rod used in the project which was taken from a dumped printer. Only a few components were imported.

The project which was handed over to PEC by the Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL) here, is still in the experimental stage and has completed two trials successfully.

Dr Sanjiv Kumar of CFSL, who was the guiding force behind the project, said the technique developed was as good as those availble in Japan, UK or USA.

He said 2D projects had been available earlier but the 3D laser scanner would be of immense help in solving murders in a short span of time.

Ms Bansal said it takes an hour to completely scan the skull and another hour to reconstruct the face with the help of an operator. The facial reconstruction for identification of humans from their skeletal is a challenging forensic art. Most of this work is still carried out by physical sculpting with clay, where experienced artists take a very long time to reconstruct a facial model.

The scanner, she said, constructs the face of the murdered victim or the murderer with the help of a laser distance sensor.

The equipment consists of two stepper motors controlled with the help of computer. The skull is mounted on a special stand and the laser sensor is attached on a movable printer head to provide vertical motion to the sensor and then the face of the murdered victim or the accused can be reconstructed.

Ms Bansal said one of the major areas of concern for law enforcing agencies was facial reconstruction for postmortem identification of humans from their physical remains.

The first documented case using three-dimensional facial reconstruction from the skull dates back to 1935, but the technique has been much refined and now a realistic face of a human can be reconstructed using a skull, she added.

UNI