Abstract Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 4

Abstract - Essay Example ng to the authors, combining of new and inexpensive technological methods may increase the availability of more flexible ways for dealing with the common challenges in forensic science. They, therefore, intended to present a method of 3-D laser scanning of chewed gum found at a crime scene into a digital file format. In a bid to justify the aim of their research, they point out that the procedure they used in their research project does not include any form of contact and is nondestructive thus more efficient prior to extracting DNA from the gum. The theme of their research is that their method, which involves generating a digital file, could be used to for dental comparison in the future in case the original chewed gum gets damaged by forensic analysis following 3-D scanning. In their research, they used an automated 3-D laser scanner that ensures a reliable, affordable, and reproducible means for scanning a 3-D object fast and at a possible resolution of 127 microns. They scanned a piece if chewed gum that had air dried for 24 hours by placing it on the tip of a tuberculin syringe needle, and then positioning it on the scanning stage of the laser scanner that is fully robotic. Using precise scan parameters of the laser scanner for a 360 degree scan, they used macro 0.005 inches precision, 125 seconds scan speed, and 0.005 triangle size. This process took less than three minutes given that they set the light in color of the target surface to that of the matte finish, and the smoothing had auto-align of the eight segments on with a setting of 1. After all the procedures involved in the process had produced digital files, they were able to come up with a virtual block that showed the shape and contours of the teeth impressions just like those in the original gum. They then used a Web-based prototyping service called Shapeways to order for clear resin as well as white plastic models of the gum from their digital files. All this took less than 10 minutes, and they