Engineering & Society
Engineering the Magic Bullet
The writers for the show CSI can now start looking to real life to help think up plot lines.
Up until just recently, forensic scientists have only been able to study the two-dimensional photos of bullets and casings taken from crime scenes. This method left ample room for error, as examiners could sometimes end up comparing striations from different sides of bullets if the images were oriented incorrectly.
Now, things are different. New ballistics-imaging technology, developed by Rockville, Maryland-based engineering firm Intelligent Automation, through funding from the Justice Department and the National Science Foundation, lets forensic scientists capture a fired bullet’s distinctive markings in 3-D for the first time. The new technology works by projecting white light through a special microscope onto a bullet or its casing. The depth of the marks determines the intensity of the reflected light, which is recorded by a camera.
Already, scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, have used this 3-D technology to develop clones of a bullet that has been fired. These “golden bullets” allow crime labs to calibrate their imaging equipment to a single set of striations, making it easier to share data. Susan Ballou, a program manager at NIST comments:
You make reference materials for DNA — blood, hair. What about bullets?
Learn more about this new 3-D imaging technology in Luke O’Brien’s article in Wired Magazine.
Image courtesy of Intelligent Automation
