[kimaddison]

A New Perspective on Crime Scenes
In 2009, to better record crime scenes, the New York City Police Department began using the Panoscan, a camera that creates high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic images. Each panorama takes between 3 to 30 minutes to produce, depending on the available light, and is added to a database where detectives can access it. Before the switch to the Panoscan, crime scene images sometimes took days to process. Now, soon after the photos are posted, investigators can point and click over evidence from a scene that they might have missed in the hectic hours after the crime. Explore the crime scenes below and listen to Detective Michael J. Cunningham of the New York Police Department discuss the technology. Related Blog Post »
The scenes are not for the faint of heart. Images of blood and the corpses themselves have not been doctored or blurred. http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2...panoramas.html

[PheliarearY]

Not a bad concept... the problem is not being able to zoom in for more details in areas of interest. Looks like the skills of a forensic photographer will still be in demand for that chore...

[exsmoker]

Not a bad concept... the problem is not being able to zoom in for more details in areas of interest. Looks like the skills of a forensic photographer will still be in demand for that chore...

I thought the same thing, you can kind of finagle the lens a bit, but you can't really get in to close.

[quorceopporce]

I thought the same thing, you can kind of finagle the lens a bit, but you can't really get in to close.

This should only require a programming enhancement to this existing system. If a high enough megapixel camera is used then a very high level of zoom will be possible. Kinda like the zoom feature used in Google maps with a lot more detail.

[hotsaucemidl]

This should only require a programming enhancement to this existing system. If a high enough megapixel camera is used then a very high level of zoom will be possible. Kinda like the zoom feature used in Google maps with a lot more detail.

Even with such a modification, there will still be key pieces of evidence that will go missing. A camera in the center of the room is nice, but you still need scale, and contrast. Nor will such a device record everything....for myself, I could where it could miss a considerable amount of detail which could be critical in future court cases...

[Voliscietle]

Even with such a modification, there will still be key pieces of evidence that will go missing. A camera in the center of the room is nice, but you still need scale, and contrast. Nor will such a device record everything....for myself, I could where it could miss a considerable amount of detail which could be critical in future court cases...

I agree that they also need to add the ability to virtually walk around the scene not just view it 360 degrees from a central point though I think this is a great tool for gathering forensic evidence.

[Galvanoidum]

I agree that they also need to add the ability to virtually walk around the scene not just view it 360 degrees from a central point though I think this is a great tool for gathering forensic evidence.

Actually, for the now, it can only serve to give a general impression of the crime scene. Nothing more. The grunt work of gathering the hard evidence will still need to done by well trained teams of professionals. Sometimes photography can be misleading...for example ....determining "is that a smudge from makeup, or the lead streak of a glancing bullet?" Color flim not processed right is all that it takes...

[7UENf0w7]

Actually, for the now, it can only serve to give a general impression of the crime scene. Nothing more. The grunt work of gathering the hard evidence will still need to done by well trained teams of professionals. Sometimes photography can be misleading...for example ....determining "is that a smudge from makeup, or the lead streak of a glancing bullet?" Color flim not processed right is all that it takes...

This system is all digital Telos, no smudges... High mega pixel digital has now exceeded the resolution of 35mm film, and when the legal issues of image integrity are worked out; I expect film to be abandoned altogether.

[giftplas]

It'll be awhile before emulsion based photography is killed off by digital. Even with the best digital systems now available, they still can't compete with film for resolution. As an example, shooting large format (4x5) Pan X (ISO 32/16) at f32 using Zeiss optics, then processed in Neofin Blue using a water bath technique to clear the shadows would require a digital system of over 700 mega pixels to produce the same results....needless to say, shooting a small format digital system with only 14 megapixels leaves much to be desired...

[replicaypu]

It'll be awhile before emulsion based photography is killed off by digital. Even with the best digital systems now available, they still can't compete with film for resolution. As an example, shooting large format (4x5) Pan X (ISO 32/16) at f32 using Zeiss optics, then processed in Neofin Blue using a water bath technique to clear the shadows would require a digital system of over 700 mega pixels to produce the same results....needless to say, shooting a small format digital system with only 14 megapixels leaves much to be desired...

Agreed though be truthful and tell me how often does crime scene forensics use large format film?

[taesrom]

That would depend on the Department....in the military, when I was shooting crime scenes we couldn't use 35mm. Nothing smaller than medium format, normally a Pentax 6x7, or a Graflex 4x5......

[datingcrew]

Even back in 90's when I worked at the federal level of law enforcement, all evidence was gathered using 35mm film. We could banter back and forth all day but it comes down to these realities... Today the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies are almost exclusively using digital format video and still photography for evidence gathering purposes due to it's low cost of processing and high resolution that it provides. Large format is now hugely expensive and used for model and ad shoots only. IMO 10 years down the road analog film will die just like the VCR when DVD was introduced.