Forensics

Bringing big data to firearm forensics

Hands-on examination by highly trained specialists does not scale, however, so the National Institute of Standards and Technology has developed a high-tech, open-access and crowdsourced solution called the Ballistics Toolmark Research Database to help modernize that process.  

Drawing on ballistics data from the FBI's reference firearms collection and other participating law enforcement agencies, NIST is building a vast collection of high-resolution virtual models of fired bullets. Test-fired bullets and cartridge cases, along with information on the guns that fired them, are sent to NIST, where lab technicians scan the samples using a microscope that produces a high-resolution, 3-D topographic surface map. The result is a virtual model of the physical object.