Forensic Facial Reconstruction Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2000 words

Forensic Facial Reconstruction - Essay Example forensic facial reconstruction has proved successful in certain cases and with further advancement, might be able to rule out controversies. It also touches media, arts, and imaging. This combination of art, visuals, and science have an immense future. It can also be one of the last resorts where all other evidence is missing in criminal cases. Mass graves, crime investigation, especially in the USA are being helped by this innovative method. Sculptors have to find the depth of skin and will be able to work on aspects that render most character to the face followed by muscle structure. Undoubtedly there will be some marginal structural flaws and accuracy limitations that are unavoidable considering the existing difficulties. Applying muscle and skin to the bone needs computer tomography. An old system consists of an image processing unit for skull morphometry and the imaging unit for compositing facial components on skull images. Interlaying of soft and hard tissues, an accuracy of r econstruction etc. still remains difficult. It is argued that the skull provides a detailed map of the face and it has led to Forensic Anthropology. "Physical anthropologists have long been called upon to apply their knowledge of human skeletal biology to practical problems of concern to the medicolegal system. The discipline of forensic anthropology arose out of this need to determine and assess the characteristics of an individual" writes Mehemt Yasar Iscan. Â  It has been difficult to achieve authenticity and standardization in face of acute opposition about inconsistency. "Despite varied attempts to achieve standardization in traditional techniques and the promotion of some newly developed ones, facial reconstruction remains on the threshold between art and science. It is the point at which science ends and the medical illustrator takes over that has led to most reservations over this branch of forensic anthropology" said Tyrell. Even though computer graphics had been able to r ender multidimensional help, the original clay modeling is still considered to be the most authentic and useful. "The former look of a face can be approximated by predicting and modeling the layers of tissue on the skull. This work is as of today carried out solely by physical sculpting with clay, where experienced artists invest up to hundreds of hours to craft a reconstructed face model. Remarkably, one of the most popular tissue reconstruction methods bears many resemblances with surface fitting techniques used in computer graphics, thus suggesting the possibility of a transfer of the manual approach to the computer." Laser technology and more and more information about the skull and facial intricacies have been helping the reconstruction by incessantly improving it. According to Venezis, "Skull and facial data from living subjects are acquired using an optical laser scanning systemhe computer image may then be exported to enable the production of a solid model, employing, for ex ample, stereolithography. The image can also be modified within an identikit system which allows the addition of facial features as appropriate".