3D Forensic Facial Reconstruction: A Review of the Traditional Sculpting Methods and Recent Computerised Developments

Authors:

Rinchon S, Arpita S*, Mahipal S and Rajeev K

Volume 3, Issue 1

Abstract

Forensic facial reconstruction aims at achieving a likeness of the facial outlook of the deceased based on the underlying skull for the purpose of recognition and identification. On encountering a greatly decomposed, mutilated, or skeletonized body, facial reconstruction can be used as a last resort technique to identify the unknown skeletal remains, when the usual methods of investigation fail. This paper focuses mainly on the three-dimensional aspect of facial reconstruction, giving an overview of both the traditional and the computerized techniques. Traditional methods involve physically modeling the clay onto the skull replica to sculpt the face, which tends to be subjective and time-taking. However, with the recent advancement in technology, newer, more rapid and flexible computer-based techniques are underway. Nevertheless, all reconstruction techniques are based on the relationship between the skull and the overlying tissues and thus, the evolution of the various techniques for facial soft tissue depth measurements along with their limitations have also been summarised. One of the major challenges it has to face in the coming future will be to fully explore this relationship between the hard and soft tissues and furthermore increase the accuracy and reliability of the various techniques.

Keywords:

Forensic Facial Reconstruction; Three-Dimensional; Recognition; Identification; Soft Tissue Depth Measurements

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