What exactly did you see as you walked through the door? Could you see into the next room? Where were you when you first saw the suspect standing at the window? Could you see a particular piece of evidence from that position? Could the suspect have seen into the hallway?

Questions like these are often critical to understanding the development of events at a crime scene. What did you see and when did you see it? Answers to these questions must be clear and understandable. You would like the listeners—judge, jury, or review panel—to visualize the scene, understand the situation, and retain the information. Furthermore, you would like the information to be true, believable, and—ideally—verifiable.

Words alone typically are not enough to accomplish all these goals. Visual aids are commonplace and vital to convey this kind of spatial information. These aids range from photographs and videotape to diagrams and computer animations. Recently we at 3rdTech have added a new tool to the tool kit—something we call ‘Viewpoints.’ In this article we’ll take a look at a number of these visualization techniques.

PHOTOGRAPHS AND VIDEO
Photographs, film or digital, are universally used for documenting a crime scene. They are, by their very nature, static views of the scene. Though well-suited for providing wide views of a room or area, or close-up views of details in the scene, showing a particular viewpoint is more problematic. Placing the camera at the viewer’s location provides a single view—from one vantage point with one view direction. Any change in direction or location requires a different photo. The number of possible photos is very large, and it’s difficult to show continuity among them. It can also be a challenge anticipating all the points of view you need to document.

Video adds motion making it possible to capture more than a single viewpoint. But you must decide, at the scene, what viewpoints you wish to illustrate. Two years later when the case comes to trial, you can’t add another view. The scene is usually long gone. In addition, video is not interactive during display. You see the scene as the person making the video decided to view it. Transitions from one viewpoint to another are unchangeable.