Documenting a crime scene is pretty crucial if you want to secure a conviction but you have to be quick, precise and get it back open to the public in time.
A police force in Roswell, New Mexico, have a new toy that could revolutionise all this - a 3D-scanner that can virtually reproduce the entire scene and keep it forever.
Advertisement
One of the images the system produces
The Faro 3D scanner system allows the police force to "fly through" the area using a tablet with officers able to zoom in on points accurate to within a "couple of millimetres".
The benefits of such a system are obvious but Inevitably there will be issues with ho reliable a virtual image is that is vulnerable to manipulation post-fact.