An anthropometric approach to forensic facial comparison

This presentation describes the benefits of moving from recording simple Euclidian distances and angles between landmarks on the face to a full 3-dimensional visualisation and mapping using modern optical scanning techniques. The objective of this study was to investigate the feasibility of creating archetypal 3D faces through computerised 3D facial averaging. An optical 3D surface scanner"Fiore" and its "Argus"software were used to acquire the 3D scans of the faces while 3D Rugle3 and locally-developed software generated the holistic facial averages. Pilot experiments are described that strive to create facial archetypes which are accurately descriptive of various cohorts of people. Issues considered include variation amongst people of the same sex, age and population-of-origin. 3D facial averages were created from 2 ethnic groups; European and Japanese and from children with 3 genetic disorders known to affect facial appearance.