Forensic Facial Reconstruction: The Final Frontier

Abstract

Forensic facial reconstruction can be used to identify unknown human remains when other techniques fail. Through this article, we attempt to review the different methods of facial reconstruction reported in literature. There are several techniques of doing facial reconstruction, which vary from two dimensional drawings to three dimensional clay models. With the advancement in 3D technology, a rapid, efficient and cost effective computerized 3D forensic facial reconstruction method has been developed which has brought down the degree of error previously encountered. There are several methods of manual facial reconstruction but the combination Manchester method has been reported to be the best and most accurate method for the positive recognition of an individual. Recognition allows the involved government agencies to make a list of suspected victims'. This list can then be narrowed down and a positive identification may be given by the more conventional method of forensic medicine. Facial reconstruction allows visual identification by the individual's family and associates to become easy and more definite.

Forensic Facial Reconstruction Using 3D Printing

“…Regarding the reconstruction process, the skull replicas used in the forensic field are made by a manual casting process using gypsum [15,16]. A drawback of the casting method is that the original skull can be damaged in the handling process, which can be a major issue if it is forensic evidence.…”

“…A novel method to replicate a victim skull is 3D printing, which can be done remotely since only a 3D model is needed [17]. Comparing the surface quality of the cast replica with the printed skull, the gypsum skull is superior to the printed replica, mainly due to the material used in the process [15,16]. However, the detailed features (brain and eyes cavities, denture geometry) of the printed skull are far superior to the gypsum skull [17].…”

Virtual anthropology? Reliability of three-dimensional photogrammetry as a forensic anthropology measurement and documentation technique

“…The five reference measurements (means of A-E) for each skull used to set the scale in Agisoft software. This was the scale from which the ILDs were approximated.. 109 [3,4], a forensic anthropologist will be called upon to aid in the identification. The skull is perhaps the part of the skeleton that most utilized in the endeavour to establish the identity of osseous remains: it can be used in building the biological profile such as classification of ancestry [5,6]; sex determination [1,2]; age estimation [1,2,7,8]; and calculation of stature [2].…”

Facial Reconstruction: Anthropometric Studies Regarding the Morphology of the Nose for Romanian Adult Population I: Nose Width

“…Therefore, facial reconstruction depicts individual facial characteristics in order to help identify the person. In the facial reconstruction theory, all faces are unique, and the shape variation of the face is directly related to skeletal structure [2][3][4][5].…”