Documenting a crime scene well is super-important. Once it gets reopened to the public, there’s no going back. You can take all the pictures you want, and they might not cut it, but Roswell Police have a new future-cop style trick: scanning the whole dang place.
Recently, Roswell PD in New Mexico became the one of the first departments to begin using a Faro 3D scanner system, which cost a cool $US86,000 in total, but apparently can provide captures accurate down to just a couple of millimetres. And all without the manpower it would take to manually photograph every inch and stitch it all together. It’s a dream that’s been a long time coming.
The law enforcement benefits of having a full crime scene render are pretty easy to imagine, but it’s also interesting (and scary?) to think of what could happen if — or when — this becomes the norm. Scene scans of famous crimes, leaked onto the Pirate Bay, complete with Oculus Rift support? Made-to-order souvenir 3D-printouts of infamous shootings? And that’s to say nothing of cops that might try to start scanning everything, all the time.
But most of the creepy side-effects that might be possible are pretty effectively counterbalanced by the incredible value of having such an interactive snapshot to refer to in court. Because if there’s any part of a case that deserves the upmost attention, it’s the facts.
Now if only I didn’t have to go to Roswell and commit a crime in order to see one of these babies in action. [3Ders via Motherboard]