Toolmark and Materials Laboratory, Division of Identification and Forensic Science (DIFS), Israel Police, Jerusalem, Israel.
Toolmark and Materials Laboratory, Division of Identification and Forensic Science (DIFS), Israel Police, Jerusalem, Israel.
Forensic Sci Int. 2022 Aug;337:111378. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2022.111378. Epub 2022 Jun 30.
Footwear impression evidence is a key tool in criminal investigations, connecting suspects to the crime scene; in addition, it may provide valuable forensic intelligence linking different crime scenes in the absence of a suspect. This paper presents the development of a computer database and semi-automatic system for shoeprint comparison. The database is based on structured manual coding of elements by CSI (Crime Scene Investigators). The computer algorithm then compares the pattern information of the query footwear impression to the entire database, returning a list of possible matches ranked by pattern similarity and crime scene geographic proximity. Initial results using a database of 284 footwear impressions from real crime scenes revealed that a "match" (i.e., the same shoe model) was found for 30% of the impressions; in most cases, the "match" ranked within the top five places of the "hit" list generated by the algorithm. Our results confirm that this semi-automatic footwear comparison system is simple, cost-effective and efficient, providing great potential for linking crime scenes.
足迹印记证据是刑事侦查中的一个关键工具，将嫌疑犯与犯罪现场联系起来；此外，在没有嫌疑人的情况下，它还可能提供有价值的法医学情报，将不同的犯罪现场联系起来。本文介绍了一种用于鞋印比对的计算机数据库和半自动系统的开发。该数据库基于 CSI（犯罪现场调查员）对要素进行结构化手动编码。然后，计算机算法将查询鞋印的图案信息与整个数据库进行比较，根据图案相似性和犯罪现场地理接近度的顺序返回可能的匹配列表。使用来自真实犯罪现场的 284 个足迹印记数据库的初步结果表明，有 30%的足迹印记找到了“匹配”（即同一鞋款）；在大多数情况下，“匹配”在算法生成的“命中”列表中排名前五。我们的结果证实，这种半自动的鞋类比对系统简单、具有成本效益且高效，为关联犯罪现场提供了巨大的潜力。
