2013
Martin Baiker
Albuquerque, NM
An important step towards quantitative comparison of striation and impression toolmarks is to understand the toolmark formation process and to assess the influence of variables like the angle of attack and the material in which experimental marks are made. Two different but complementary approaches, one by the Netherlands Forensic Institute, the other by John Jay College, have been developed that tackle the problem of generating virtual toolmarks from two different perspectives, both of which yield realistic representations of real toolmark profiles. Now researchers have an excellent way to avoid having to create large numbers of experimental toolmarks yet still have a large enough sample size to do rigorous statistical studies.