Mar.25, 2014
Models of a criminal's face may soon be generated from any trace of DNA left at the crime scenes. Anthropologist Mark Shriver of Pennsylvania State University has created a computer program that may one day be able to create virtual and 3D printed mugshots using a DNA sample, for example, a hair at a crime scene.
The complex structure of the face makes it more valuable as a forensic tool — and more difficult to connect to genetic variation, says Shriver.
Shriver and his team took high-resolution 3D images of 592 volunteers of mixed European and West African ancestry living in the United States, Brazil and Cape Verde using a stereo camera. They used these images to create 3D models and superimposed more than 7,000 digital points of reference on the facial features and recorded the exact position of each of those markers. The team then used these grids to measure how the facial features of a subject differ from the average: whether the nose was flatter, for instance, or the cheekbones wider.
A) original surface, B) trimmed to exclude non-face parts, C) reflected to make mirror image, D) anthropometric mask of quasi-landmarks, E) remapped, F) reflected remapped, G) symmetrized, H) reconstructed.
To narrow down the search, they focused on genes thought to be involved in facial development. Then, taking into account the person's sex and ancestry, their methods studied systematically facial variation with regard to sex, ancestry, and genes, allowing them to lay the foundation for predictive modeling of faces.
Each of the study participants were tested for 76 other genetic variations that cause facial mutations. The researchers found 24 variants in 20 genes that could predict facial shape based off DNA.
"Such predictive modeling could be forensically useful; for example, DNA left at crime scenes could be tested and faces predicted in order to help to narrow the pool of potential suspects. Further, our methods could be used to predict the facial features of descendants, deceased ancestors, and even extinct human species. In addition, these methods could prove to be useful diagnostic tools." notes the team.
However this tool is still far from being an effective tool for police. "I believe that in five to 10 years' time, we will be able to computationally predict a face," writes Peter Claes of the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL), co-author of the work, published in PLOS Genetics1.
Shriver is currently refining his tech by starting sampling more people. In the next round of testing, they will use 30,000 different points will be instead of 7,000 used in the first test. Shriver says that in the future merging this development with a 3D printer will make it possible to print out 3D models of a person's face based on a piece of DNA.
via Techtimes
Posted in 3D Printing Applications
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