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Eugene Liscio, our favorite Forensic Graphics Artist, has just written a new piece of Forensic Magazine on the potential of using Microsoft’s Photosynth tool to reconstruct 3D Geometry from 2D images.

These “points” define accurate features in 3D space that are common between photos and by taking enough photographs of an object, it is possible to construct a point cloud from the “synthed” images. In effect, this makes it one of the only free 3D scanners that can be utilized to get relative distances between point features of an object.

via Forensic Magazine® – Making Teamwork Really Work for You.

Science forensic, liscio, photosynth

Our good friend Eugene Liscio has spent some time trying out some fantastic point-cloud manipulation software from Alice Labs called “Studio Clouds”, and has written a great description and review of the system that we feature here. Also be sure to check out Eugene’s previous contributions.

3D scanning using LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) also known as High Density Surveying (HDS) is a rapidly growing domain with applications spanning across many industries such as aerospace, architecture, film and television, archaeology and forensics. The ability to capture millions and even billions of 3D points means that a vast amount of information can be known about a particular object or landscape. However, all this data comes at a price. There are relatively few software solutions that can easily handle and process billions points on a PC.

Today, PC hardware has made great advances to close the processing power gap, however when it comes to point clouds, it is the software and visualization tools that are still playing “catch up”. There have been several software programs supplied by 3D scanning equipment manufacturers in order to assist in filling the void, but this has mainly been targeted at the surveying market and only recently have developments been made to provide better visualization tools for other sectors of industry such as Forensics and Gaming.

One company that has had an interesting approach to solving these issues is the Dutch based company, Alice Labs. Their product, Studio Clouds offers a different paradigm in preparing, analyzing and visualizing point clouds. Their efforts have been focused in areas where other technologies have been lacking. Studio Clouds can process billions of points of data on a standard 32 or 64 bit PC with ease and it can also allow the import of these massive point clouds in 3DS Max and Maya.

Read the rest after the break.

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Science 3dsmax, alice labs, feature, lidar, liscio, maya, software, studio clouds

In this VizWorld Feature, Eugene Liscio of AI2-3D returns with an article discussing the power of Forensic Virtual Models in the Courtroom.

When virtual reality became popularized in the late 1980s and 1990s, it wasn’t long before people started to dream of fascinating concepts and uses for virtual environments in education, simulation, training and entertainment. However, at the time the progression of technology fell short in terms of processing power, responsive tactic input devices and the fundamental programming and logical techniques required to output a realistic looking environment.

Today, there have been large improvements in processing power as well as the techniques used to display cutting edge 3D graphics in real-time. By simply looking at the gaming, medical and engineering design markets, one will quickly realize that the developments in computer graphics in the last 20 years has been astonishing. Yet, even with the advancements in processing power and logical programming techniques, the use of virtual reality in the forensics and litigation fields has seen minimal use.

Read more after the break.

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Science feature, forensic, legal, liscio

Eugene Liscio

Earlier this week I discovered AI2-3D, an animation company run by Eugene Liscio, P.Eng.  AI2-3D specializes in accident reconstructions and forensic animations to be used by police and lawyers in prosecuting cases.  They have several example animations on their site and Youtube.

The following is an edited and condensed version of an interview conducted with Mr Liscio, about his work with forensic animation.

VW: Your website describes AI2 has “3D Forensic Computer Animations, Forensic Mapping, and Photogrammetry Services”. For starters, can you describe just what AI2-3D does?

EL: Well, AI² originally started out as Animations, Imaging and Illustrations; hence the name.  However, after a short time in business in became clear to me that there were other services that clients could use that some other animation houses weren’t offering.  Namely, the ability to do site surveys using a total station and photogrammetry.  These technologies were just a good fit since they rounded things out and I wasn’t dependant on a third party to complete these activities. However, today there are a lot more things that people like to get animated or into a 3D format.  So, I like to sum up the services as Forensic Visualization.

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Graphics, Hardware, Science ai2-3d, feature, forensic, interview, liscio