Unity game engine used to solve crime

North Carolina State University has announced plans to use 3D laser scanning and the Unity game engine to record and simulate crime scenes for international investigators.

The Unity 2.6 game development engine (the backbone of games like Mika Manila's Zombieville USA iPhone shooter, the Cartoon Network free-to-play MMO FusionFall and pretty much every game at webgame portal Blurst) was released for free in October, and now North Carolina State has joined the ranks of indie game makers and third-party developers in pushing the 3D engine with a $1.4 million 3D scanning set-up (known as IC-CRIME) capable of recording the exact dimensions of a crime scene for future study. The money comes courtesy of a National Science Foundation Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation grant intended to promote collaboration in forensic science.

"We'll be building an easy-to-use interface on top of the game environment that will allow CSIs and other investigators to link locations in the crime scene to external sources of data, such as hair and fiber databases, fingerprint images and investigator notes," university representative Dr. Michael Young told Reuters.

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North Carolina State University has announced plans to use 3D laser scanning and the Unity game engine to record and simulate crime scenes for international investigators.

The Unity 2.6 game development engine (the backbone of games like Mika Manila's Zombieville USA iPhone shooter, the Cartoon Network free-to-play MMO FusionFall and pretty much every game at webgame portal Blurst) was released for free in October, and now North Carolina State has joined the ranks of indie game makers and third-party developers in pushing the 3D engine with a $1.4 million 3D scanning set-up (known as IC-CRIME) capable of recording the exact dimensions of a crime scene for future study. The money comes courtesy of a National Science Foundation Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation grant intended to promote collaboration in forensic science.

"We'll be building an easy-to-use interface on top of the game environment that will allow CSIs and other investigators to link locations in the crime scene to external sources of data, such as hair and fiber databases, fingerprint images and investigator notes," university representative Dr. Michael Young told Reuters.

"Game technology allows us as developers to create highly interactive and adaptable virtual environments," said Young. "The game world will support multiple concurrent users, allowing several CSIs to interact with each other while exploring the virtual crime scene."

Scanning real-life crime scenes into a digital 3D environment will allow investigators to manipulate the scene like a video game level, saving it for future reference or sending the level out for others to explore and study. Development work is also possible, allowing police to simulate events using digital actors.

"The problem is that while there have been major advancements in the field of forensic science technology, how investigative teams come together to collaborate has not changed over the years," said Dr. Mitzi Montoya, Zelnak Professor of Marketing and Innovation Management at NC State.

IC-CRIME is expected to be operational within three years, though local authorities may be training with the prototype by 2010.

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