3D Forensic Crime Scene Reconstruction Involving Immersive Technology: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

Recreation of 3D crime scenes is critical for law enforcement in the investigation of serious crimes for criminal justice responses. This work presents a premier systematic literature review (SLR) that offers a structured, methodical, and rigorous approach to understanding the trend of research in 3D crime scene reconstruction as well as tools, technologies, methods, and techniques employed thereof in the last 17 years. Major credible scholarly database sources, Scopus, and Google Scholar, which index journals and conferences that are promoted by entities such as IEEE, ACM, Elsevier, and SpringerLink were explored as data sources. Of the initial 17, 912 papers that resulted from the first search string, 258 were found to be relevant to our research questions after implementing the inclusion and exclusion criteria. To summarize the existing efforts, we compared and analysed various classical 3D reconstruction approaches. This study presents the first comprehensive review of key milestones in the development of methods for 3D crime scene reconstruction, gaps for improvement and where immersive technology has been used to enhance crime scene findings. This study found that the implementation of light detection and ranging (LiDAR) scanners and immersive technologies, alongside traditional methods, has been beneficial in the recreation of crime scenes. The SLR is limited to existing applications with peer-reviewed papers published between 2005 and 2021. Results based on the analysed published data indicated that 20.2% of the articles implemented immersive technologies in crime scene reconstruction, of which Augmented Reality (AR) accounted for 15.3%, Virtual Reality (VR) accounted for 75%, Mixed reality (MR) accounted for 5.9% and VR and AR mixture accounted for 3.8%. Finally, we summarize the development trend of design and key technology prospects of crime scene recreation using immersive technology and provide insights into potential future research. To the best of the researchers' knowledge, this is the first survey that accomplishes such goals.

Cognição na cena de crime: reconhecendo vestígios de potencial interesse para investigações policiais

“…Uma revisão sistemática evidencia essa escassez: Dentre toda a bibliografia analisada (n= 258) sobre o uso de tecnologias imersivas nas ciências forenses, apenas 2% das produções foram assinadas por pesquisadores da América do Sul. Enquanto isso, 54,1% foram feitas por pesquisadores na Europa e 20,1% na América do Norte, totalizando 74,2% das produções acadêmicas sobre o tema [44]. Isso indica que a aplicação de tecnologias imersivas na área forense ainda é um território pouco explorado no contexto sulamericano.…”

Establishing the Manner of Death: A 3D Reconstruction of a Case of Hanging

“…The authors decided to use tridimensional reconstruction of the scene and prepare 3D simulation models to make educated guesses about the circumstances of death. The main applications of geomatic techniques in forensics are violent crime scene analysis, traffic collisions, fingerprint analysis, footwear analysis, facial reconstruction, blood pattern analysis, and bullet trajectory analysis [21][22][23][24][25]. To the best of our knowledge, no other case of a 3D reconstruction of a hanging has bene described in the literature.…”

Crime Light Imaging (CLI): A Novel Sensor for Stand-Off Detection and Localization of Forensic Traces

“…Technological developments might importantly help the investigators where, for example, in outdoor scenarios, the use of drones equipped with cameras [ 2 ] or other sensor [ 3 , 4 ] supplies may rapidly capture crucial data without altering the evidence. Both in outdoor and indoor situations, 3D crime scene reconstruction is of fundamental importance [ 5 , 6 ], where it is possible to exploit photogrammetry or to use modern 3D scanners that combine photography and laser distance measurements from the observation point or employ time-of-flight cameras. Whereas 3D scanners offer a relatively rapid and more comprehensive view of geometry of the whole scene, classical digital photography provides better information about small details, which can be then localized on 3D pictures by applying photogrammetry [ 7 , 8 ].…”