Forensics

New Open Source 3D Database for Ballistics Toolmark Research

Identifying the firearm used in a crime is more complicated than shown in the movies. However, the basic setup is correct. Ballistics examiners match bullets visually, and they have been doing it this way for almost 100 years.

According to Homeland Security News Wire, this month National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) released the largest open-access database of its kind — the NIST Ballistics Toolmark Research Database.

Led by Xiaoyu Alan Zheng, this database effort is partly in response to a 2009 report from the National Academy of Sciences, which highlighted the need for statistical methods to estimate uncertainty when matching ballistic and other types of forensic pattern evidence. The development of the database was largely funded with a grant from the National Institute of Justice.