HemoSpat News

IABPA Conference 2012 Tucson, AZ, USA

I attended the 2012 IABPA conference in Tucson, AZ, USA last week. I was fortunate enough to have been invited to present my work on cast-off visualization as well as a workshop on HemoSpat. Thanks to Norm Reeves [BPA Consulting] for all his work organizing the conference and for inviting me to present.

This conference had a great mix of research, case, and other presentations. It’s encouraging to see so many others presenting their work. I was particularly glad to see Céline Nicloux [Institute De Recherche Criminelle De La Gendarmerie Nationale] and Elisabeth Williams [Environmental Science & Research] present research on cast-off that fit so well with what I’m doing with it.

There was a more international flavour at the conference this year which was refreshing. People came from Korea, Japan, South Africa, The Philippines, France, The Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, UK, and of course the USA and Canada.

The standout talks for me this time were: The Characteristics of Blood On “Wicking” Fabrics presented by Rich Tewes [Pioneer Forensics], Paulette Sutton’s [private consultant] Proving a Priest Killed a Nun (“Can I get a Holy Crap?!“), Bloodstain Pattern Documentation: A new Approach presented by Michael Perkins [Las Vegas Metro Police Department] (his recommendations are exactly the direction HemoSpat is headed) and André Hendrix’s [Politie Zeeland] presentation about the shooting of Prince William of Orange titled A 400 Year Old Royal Crime Scene.

Even the general meeting was interesting this time…

Thanks to André Hendrix, Klaas Vervolet, and Jos Albers for participating in the Adopt-a-Canadian program. We had fun running around the Tucson area after the conference.

Next stop: Edinburgh.

Andy Maloney

Lead Developer, HemoSpat

HemoSpat Icon
FORident Software is pleased to announce the release of HemoSpat v1.6 for Mac OS X 10.5-10.7 [64-bit Intel], Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

The larger changes include a new interactive 2D viewer, a new tutorial on working with SketchUp, Mac OS X 10.7 support, and improvements to the COLLADA (.dae) exporter.

There are many other changes and fixes as well. For download links and a more complete list of changes, please see the release notes.

New 2D Viewer

New 2D Viewer

We look forward to hearing any feedback from you!

Association for Crime Scene Reconstruction

When an investigator encounters a cast-off pattern at a crime scene, they can usually get a sense of the general location and orientation of the swing which created the pattern. This is very difficult to document and almost impossible to demonstrate to others who have not attended the scene.

This research is about trying to find a way to capture that piece of the scene in a way that will let investigators communicate it to others. The article, titled Visualization of Cast-off Patterns Using 3D Modelling Software, was published in the Fall 2011 issue of the Journal of the Association for Crime Scene Reconstruction.

Cast-off Pattern Planes of Motion

Cast-off Pattern Planes of Motion

The abstract of the paper is on our Bloodstain Research page, and the article and supplemental material are also available for download.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to contact us.

HemoSpat IconFORident Software is pleased to announce the release of HemoSpat v1.5 for Mac OS X 10.5 [Intel], Mac OS X 10.6 [Intel], Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7.

The larger changes include the ability to use the left-handed coordinate system, the addition of an experiment mode, the addition of an auto-save feature, and more flexibility when dealing with downward moving stains. We also added many options to the DXF exporter and the 2D Viewer.

There are many other changes and fixes as well. For download links and a more complete list of changes, please see the release notes.

We look forward to hearing any feedback from you!

DeWayne Morris of the Illinois State Police (ISP) presented a talk at a recent SWGSTAIN meeting on combining panoramic photography, data exported from HemoSpat, and a 3D model of the scene. The goal is to provide a real-time virtual 3D environment to be used as demonstrative evidence to expert testimony.

The details of the process are too long to post, but essentially you start with 3D data exported from HemoSpat using the DXF exporter:

ISP - 3D HemoSpat data

…and a spherical panoramic photo of the crime scene…

ISP - Panoramic crime scene photo

…and then combine them using the 3ds Max modelling software:

ISP - Panoramic crime scene photo with HemoSpat data

Then you can render it as a Quicktime VR movie which lets you navigate the scene as a virtual 3D environment.

I love seeing people do new and interesting things like this! Thanks to DeWayne and the ISP for permission to use the images.