Modelling a crime scene in 3D and adding thermal information

Once a crime has been perpetrated, forensic traces will only be persevered in the crime scene for a limited time frame. It is therefore necessary to record a crime scene meticulously. Usually, photographs and/or videos are taken at the scene to document it, so that later on one will know the exact place of an object. Another possibility is to construct a three dimensional (3D) model of the crime scene. A 3D model has the advantage that you can change the perspective and view the scene from all directions. We use a stereo camera to record the crime scene and use these images to construct a 3D model. A drawback of conventional (color) cameras is that they only capture features that belong to the visible part of electromagnetic spectrum. Interesting traces with strong signatures in other parts of the spectrum could be overlooked. For example; has a lamp or computer screen been turned on previously, is there some fluid on the carpet? Such traces can be observed with an infrared (IR) camera that captures images in the IR part of the spectrum. However, it is not well understood if these traces stay visible for a sufficient amount time. Therefore, a first set of experiments was conducted to gain some insight in the visibility degradation of different IR traces over time. The results are discussed in this paper. Furthermore, it will be shown how adding thermal information to the 3D model can improve crime scene understanding