How NASA can help detectives
With a new photographic laser device developed to check damages on the Space Shuttle, NASA is going to help the FBI to investigate crime scenes. The Laser Scaling and Measurement Device for Photographic Images (LSMDPI) was designed to provide a non-intrusive means of adding a scale to a photograph, which is very useful when looking at an object in space when there is no size reference. But the LSMDPI, which weighs only a half-pound and can be attached directly to a camera's tripod, will also be used on Earth in crime and accident scene investigations. It also could be used for oil and chemical tank monitoring or aerial photography.
Here is a short background provided by NASA.
Engineers at NASA's Kennedy Space Center (KSC), Kennedy Space Center, Fla., developed the Laser Scaling and Measurement Device for Photographic Images (LSMDPI) to assist scientists who were unable to determine the exact scale of hailstorm damages to the Space Shuttle's external tank by viewing photographs of the spacecraft on its launch pad.
But how big is this new laser device?
The LSMDPI is a half-pound black box, powered by a single nickel-cadmium battery that attaches directly to a camera’s tripod mount. Twin lasers, an inch apart, shoot from the box, and add scale to photographs. In other words, the laser offers the ability for someone to look at these special photographs and have a better understanding of just how big or small objects really are.
Below is a picture showing how the device was really used to discover "hail-inflicted divots in the External Tank's foam insulation." (Credit: NASA, from a 2004 story, Laser Device Goes Beyond 'CSI').
And below is a picture of NASA's LSMDPI black box which is attached "directly to a camera and projects a pattern of dots into the field of view. This pattern appears in the photograph along with the image of the object under investigation, enabling the viewer to measure the size of the object." (Credit: NASA).
Now, how does this work?
Typically, when you use a camera to zoom in on an object, you lose track of the scale that informs you of an object’s actual size. When a picture is taken with the LSMDPI, the image loads into software designed by NASA electrical design engineer Kim Ballard. The user chooses a set of reference points such as a laser pattern of reference point dots that will appear along with the image of the target object.
The user also inputs the distance between the reference points. The software then sets the scale based on that distance. This allows the viewer quantifiable perspective on the size of the object. The size of the object’s features can then be found and measured by using the computer software to mark the laser points.
This is why the FBI and several European customers have asked NASA for help.
Not only can they use it to fully view photos of components from crime scenes such as blood-spatter patterns and graffiti, but can also see the images from different angles (including diagonally, horizontally and vertically) to better analyze and understand the scenes.
In fact, just recently, Ballard was asked by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) to add more capabilities to the LSMDPI software to enable forensics experts to zoom in and out of the image to measure blood spatter details across a wall as well as specific areas.
Now, the next time you watch 'CSI' on TV, remember that the crime scene investigators might soon use a tool from NASA to help them solve the mysteries elaborated by the screenwriters.
Sources: Gretchen Cook-Anderson, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, February 27, 2006; and various web sites
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