The RISEN 3DA-CSI System significantly speeds up the collection and gathering of the most relevant traces from a crime scene, reducing the risk of contamination, and allowing remote access to investigators to visualize the crime scene and proceed with further investigation. Importantly, RISEN’s multi-modal approach ensures the accurate representation of sensor placements, physical evidence, and traces of forensic interest, enabling a precise visualization of the crime scene, and facilitating a better understanding of spatial relationships and event dynamics. For example, the 3D-VR Tool provides a graphical interface for examining the crime scene’s 3D model, and the investigators’ notes using the 3D tool are stored in the 3DA-CSI data repository, being available through web and 3D interfaces (Figure 1). Overall, the RISEN System forms a network-enabled system that securely and efficiently exchanges data through the RISEN API, developed to directly connect the RISEN sensors to the 3DA-CSI System, and standardized to provide access to any authorized sensing component (CWA 18096) (Figure 2). RISEN's standardization activities and successful CWA publication reflect the project's proactive stance in shaping the standards landscape, dedicated to advance forensic science.
The deployment strategy for the RISEN sensors covers the multi-stage examination of the crime scene with a workflow that is adaptable to the specific properties of each crime scene: 1) Operator health and safety (air sampling); 2) Mid-range contactless forensic sensors; 3) Sensors for close-up analysis and off-site analysis after sampling. The first sensor prototypes were successfully tested by the manufacturers in their laboratories and during a measurement campaign in the Netherlands, hosted by NFI, in June 2023. In October 2023, the first RISEN Trials took place in Germany, at the Fraunhofer ICT facility in Pfinztal, broadly demonstrating the achieved RISEN capabilities to relevant end-users. Received LEA feedback inspired the RISEN Consortium to further improve the System, which was again showcased a year later, in October 2024, in the RISEN Final Trials hosted at the RaCIS facility in Rome, Italy.
The RISEN Final Trials accomplished the successful validation of the RISEN System, field-testing the 7 connected RISEN sensors and the RISEN 3DA-CSI System in realistic crime scene scenarios built for purpose (a homicide in a clandestine laboratory for HME and drugs). Representing different use cases, the scenarios developed by the LEA end-users were challenging for the main analytical capabilities of the sensors, for the 3D reconstruction, trace positioning and visualization tool and for the digital evidence management system. Concerning the 3D Reconstruction, high quality point clouds and mesh models were created, delivering a digital 3D visual replica of the crime scene. The positioning chain was fully integrated for the first time, and results show that the tools accurately located the measurements in the given crime scene. The DEMS was tested through the creation of 8 investigation cases and the collection of data and information shared by the 7 RISEN sensors, via the RISEN API. The data was then stored, processed, managed and displayed to support investigation activities. Overall, the RISEN System demonstrated the feasibility of innovative network-enabled on-site sensing forensic investigation tools, identifying, selecting and labelling traces on-site and sending these measurements in real-time to a system that produces an interactive 3D crime scene model and provides instant digitalization and storage of relevant investigative information. RISEN provided LEAs with rapid access to crime scene information, supporting investigations through analysis of visible and invisible traces, correlation among traces, and rapid identification of relevant traces. The development of the RISEN System presented a sophisticated and mature system, incorporating a set of relevant functionalities that considered the valuable contributions, feedback and improvement recommendations from the RISEN LEA end-users.
