Digital Analysis of Bite Mark Evidence [Spiral-bound]

Raymond J. Johansen (Author), Raymond Johansen (Author), C. Michael Bowers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2000

This book is the first practical step-by-step description of digital methods necessary to control and analyze physical forensic evidence. Digital imaging is becoming commonplace in our world today and Forensic Dentistry and its allied disciplines are no exception. Bite marks are now being photographed digitally, digitally scanned from photographs, sent via electronic mail, and copied onto floppy, zip, and compact disks. These same applications are used in firearms, ballistics, fingerprints, and toolmark investigation.

It is becoming essential for the Forensic Examiner to be able to work with these digital images when asked to investigate cases. Adobe(r) Photoshop(r) is a powerful software tool that allows for imaging, enhancing, and resizing of the original evidence photographs. Photoshop(r) is also ideal for fabrication of suspect dentition overlays and other forensic exemplars used in physical comparisons.

Topics include scanning of bite mark photographs, enhancement and resizing these images, photographic distortion control, scanning two and three dimensional evidence, fabrication of overlays, and physical comparison techniques within Photoshop(r).

Practice image files that are used throughout the book are included on a 3.5 inch, high-density 1.44MB floppy disk.

Editorial Reviews

From the Author

Digital Analysis of Bite Mark Evidence establishes standard operating protocols (SOPS) in the computer analysis of physical evidence.

From the Back Cover

Digital imaging is becoming commonplace in our world today and Forensic Dentistry is no exception. Bite marks are now being photographed digitally, digitally scanned from photographs, sent via electronic mail, and copied onto floppy, zip, and compact disks. This technology allows us to instantaneously collect and share information.

It is becoming essential for the Forensic examiner to be able to work with these digital images when asked to analyze bite mark cases.

Adobe(r) Photoshop(r) is a powerful software tool that allows for imaging, enhancing, and resizing of the original injury photographs. Photoshop(r) is also ideal for fabrication of suspect dentition overlays to be used in physical comparison to the bite mark images.

Topics include scanning of bite mark photographs, enhancement and resizing these images, scanning suspect's dentition casts, fabrication of overlays, and comparison techniques within Photoshop(r).

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Spiral-bound: 118 pages
• Publisher: Forensic Imaging Inst; 1 edition (February 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0967786606
• ISBN-13: 978-0967786605
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #9,722,444 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Call 805- 701-3024 regarding specific questions about forensic dentistry.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars DIGITAL ANALYSIS OF BITE MARK EVIDENCE, June 16, 2000

By 

howard s glazer (us) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Digital Analysis of Bite Mark Evidence (Spiral-bound)

DIGITAL ANALYSIS OF BITE MARK EVIDENCE (Using Adobe® Photoshop®)

Raymond J. Johansen, DMD & C. Michael Bowers, DDS, JD

A BOOK REVIEW BY Howard S. Glazer, DDS, FAAFS

As we embark into the 21st century, state-of-the-art technology affords the forensic dentist the opportunity of using digital photography to better analyze and compare bite mark evidence.

Dr. Johansen and Bowers have provided a "how to" manual that specifically details those steps necessary to successfully use, and understand, digital analysis. It is imperative that the uniqueness of any individual characteristics of a bite mark, or those teeth that cause the mark, to be reliably, accurately and precisely analyzed in a replicable fashion. Such techniques do exist and the authors lead the reader to a full working knowledge of how to prepare, handle and utilize the evidence. All manipulations are handled via Adobe Photoshop 5.0®.

Subjects included in this text include: * scanning bite mark photographs * detecting and correcting photographic distortion * resizing the photograph to life size * printing, enhancing, and adding text to the photograph * scanning the suspect's casts and overlay fabrication * comparison methods

This book is a hands-on, reference that requires the operator to follow specific steps to achieve maximum and optimum results. At first, the tasks seem difficult, but repetition increases the operator's familiarity and ease of use. They include that a test case eases the reader's understanding and provide for immediate experience.

I encourage and enthusiastically recommend this book to all my forensic dental colleagues. The techniques learned herein will become the benchmark for digital analysis of photographic evidence.