A New Perspective on Crime Scenes

November 28, 2011 10:28 PM

A new perspective on crime scenes. (warning: panoramics are of crime scenes, and some include victims of violent crime.)

"In 2009, to better record crime scenes, the New York City Police Department began using the Panoscan, a camera that creates high-resolution, 360-degree panoramic images. Each panorama takes between 3 to 30 minutes to produce, depending on the available light, and is added to a database where detectives can access it. Before the switch to the Panoscan, crime scene images sometimes took days to process. Now, soon after the photos are posted, investigators can point and click over evidence from a scene that they might have missed in the hectic hours after the crime. Explore the crime scenes below and listen to Detective Michael J. Cunningham of the New York Police Department discuss the technology."

posted by SpacemanStix (20 comments total)

There is something particularly terrifying about the hallway - being able to feel the smallness of the space. How familiar and mundane it is, and how inescapable.
posted by louche mustachio at 10:53 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

I sure hope the police officers have some sort of zoom functionality. I couldn't find any, and the panoramas are painfully tiny.
posted by Joakim Ziegler at 11:29 PM on November 28, 2011

I sure hope the police officers have some sort of zoom functionality. I couldn't find any...

I know, right? Morbid curiosity compels me to try to get a closer look.

The krpano Panorama Viewer normally allows you to zoom in by hitting the Shift key (as in this example) but they've deliberately set maxpixelzoom:null to prevent you from doing that with these.
posted by twoleftfeet at 11:47 PM on November 28, 2011

Did we do the "Enhance" bit from Bladerunner yet? If not ...

Enhance 224 to 176. Enhance, stop. Move in, stop. Pull out, track right, stop. Center in, pull back. Stop. Track 45 right. Stop. Center and stop. Enhance 34 to 36. Pan right and pull back. Stop. Enhance 34 to 46. Pull back. Wait a minute, go right, stop. Enhance 57 to 19. Track 45 left. Stop. Enhance 15 to 23. Give me a hard copy right there.

Yay! Frist!
posted by Joe in Australia at 11:55 PM on November 28, 2011 [1 favorite]

Joe. my faith in MeFi is renewed.

This is really interesting stuff.
posted by arcticseal at 1:34 AM on November 29, 2011

The krpano Panorama Viewer normally allows you to zoom in by hitting the Shift key (as in this example) but they've deliberately set maxpixelzoom:null to prevent you from doing that with these.
posted by twoleftfeet

This is correct, and it can be manipulated. If you use a MITM proxy such as webscarab you can change the page recieved by the browser and put whatever maxpixelzoom you want.

The parameter is in this object:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/20/nyregion/nypd-crime-scene-panoramas.html

A value of maxpixelzoom of 10 worked well for me. You can get in pretty close but the source material is not high rez. Shift zooms and Left Control unzooms.
posted by CautionToTheWind at 1:58 AM on November 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

PhotoSynth would be a useful tool here, as you can create 3D scenes from collections of regular [crime scene] photos without any custom pano hardware. Scenes don't have to have single point-of-view and you can include close-up of detail areas. There's also a nifty iPhone app.

(Disclaimer: I worked with these guys)
posted by rh at 2:08 AM on November 29, 2011

Deliciously dark caption on that last one: Dinner, Interrupted
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:09 AM on November 29, 2011

I really hope this doesn't put Poppy Montgomery out of a job.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:17 AM on November 29, 2011

I found myself looking at the package of meat on the counter and feeling kind of queasy on that last one. The body was horrific but for some reason the packaged meat just sitting there, still wrapped, did the real work.
posted by tmt at 5:33 AM on November 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

This goes nicely with our recent discussion of "Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death".
posted by ryanshepard at 6:17 AM on November 29, 2011

The body was horrific but for some reason the packaged meat just sitting there, still wrapped, did the real work.

Hey man, meat is murder.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:19 AM on November 29, 2011

What is the exact hardware set up that does this? Is it a motorized setup? Or just a standard tripod that you: pan 5 degrees, snap, pan 5 degrees snap.

And then presumably you dump all the photos into software, which is?
posted by nevercalm at 6:46 AM on November 29, 2011

Looks like the underlying Panoscan hardware is a Rotating line camera. To my surprise, it's actually nothing like a normal digital camera. It's just a single line of sensors, like a document scanner, behind a lens that all rotates around a center point. So there's no stitching involved; the raw image is the 360 degree panorama.
posted by smackfu at 8:02 AM on November 29, 2011

In the first scene it's possible to pan the camera upwards and see the light falling through the trees, and perhaps this is best.
posted by justsomebodythatyouusedtoknow at 9:09 AM on November 29, 2011 [2 favorites]

I wonder if this could be combined with the Lytro camera to capture any depth of field you want, all in one image.
posted by nicodine at 9:35 AM on November 29, 2011

Equally interesting and morbid. I would love to have been able to zoom in to get a better look, and not just at the bodies.

I've seen so many gruesome crime scene photos but being able to pan around and see the absolute mundanity of the surroundings only to be punctuated by a body or splats of blood just made these all the more disturbing, as if something like this could happen to any one of us at any time.

Now if you'll excuse me I'm just going to get my windows barred and locks changed.
posted by DuchessProzac at 10:23 AM on November 29, 2011

Can somebody explain to me how a camera can take a picture of itself?
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 10:52 AM on November 29, 2011 [1 favorite]

I wonder if this could be combined with the Lytro camera to capture any depth of field you want, all in one image.

The Lytro links in your comment are not working for me, nicodine, but here's an interesting article about the technology from The Atlantic. I agree it also looks like a remarkable crime investigation tool.
posted by bearwife at 10:53 AM on November 29, 2011

stupidsexyFlanders: Yeah, the description in one says "The Panoscan itself" is visible, but I think it's just the tripod with a circular blind spot right in the middle.
posted by RobotHero at 7:47 PM on November 29, 2011