New Release: Evidence Recorder PRO 2.0 with GPS integration

Evidence Recorder 2.0 was released yesterday - it's a free upgrade for current users and has a long list of advanced features including a new, easy-to-use graphics engine, a user interface with even more capability, and GPS communication.

"Accident reconstruction professionals may want to utilize GPS to compute a starting location. Our GPS integration automatically plots points from GPS receivers in the Evidence Recorder," says Darcy J. Detlor, MicroSurvey’s President. "We want to design leading edge technology to be fully compatible with other developing technologies and make AR professionals that much more efficient."

Other new features of Evidence Recorder 2.0 include true 3D graphics to simplify collection of walls or building faces, and a Project Manager to explore your data, control visibility and modify your mapping library.

Santa Ana Traffic Division Sergeant Busy Investigating Hundreds of Pedestrian Collisions

There's more than one reason Sergeant Paul Gonsalves trains as a runner for the Baker to Vegas relay every year. As the head of what may be one of the busiest AR departments in the country, it helps to keep in good running shape!

Sgt Gonsalves investigates an unusually large percentage of pedestrian fatalities. "We established a pedestrian accident reduction team (PART). Our intention with this program is to educate pedestrians on road safety," says Sgt Gonsalves.

Gonsalves' department investigates 300-400 reports of collisions (hit and run/injury) a month, more than many departments investigate in a year. His department of three Collision Investigators will only shoot major collisions. "With the software we were using before you would never know it if you shot it right. With Evidence Recorder we can draw the scene, see the drawing in its entirety and see if there's any points missing. It has really streamlined our process. We used to do an entire scene with a 100-foot tape - the station line method. With Evidence Recorder it's so much easier just to connect the dots."

Sgt Gonsalves uses a standard theodolite or Sokkia total station and HP iPAQs, recently purchased with a technology grant. "The iPAQs are ideal not only for drawings, but Santa Ana motor officers use them to issue citations, write state-required reports and make audio and video recordings," says Sgt Gonsalves. Officers can also receive department emails via an Air card while in the field. Sometimes he does some GIS mapping to superimpose intersections and place an AR scene onto an existing map.

"Evidence Recorder and iPAQ really became valuable during a recent fatal involving a street race," says Sgt Gonsalves. "An elderly woman was killed because two cars were involved in an impromptu street race on one of our major streets where one collided head on with the victim. The investigation is ongoing, and both drivers are in custody pending murder charges. Mapping the scene was extensive because of the size of the area involved. I'm sure we'll have to go into court with our evidence, which will need to be extremely precise because of the scope of the charges."

"Technology has allowed us to save man hours in our investigative process from actual scene mapping to recreating it on the computer through the drawing program. We use Evidence Recorder because we know we'll go into court with all our i's dotted and our t's crossed. The equipment has allowed us to create accurate, professional drawings and the way the pieces come together - the facts draw the conclusion."

In the future Sgt Gonsalves aims to develop the Santa Ana traffic division so that more officers have the skills to map crash scenes and know the correct type of information to collect. "Most traffic officers have basic or intermediate skills, but by allowing them to rotate into the Collision Investigative Unit they can acquire the necessary skills to enhance their professional ability. I get a lot of gratification knowing we have well trained traffic officers investigating serious crashes. Each knows what to look for when they investigate a scene. I know that it's going to take time for this cross training, but this benefits the department and ultimately the community."

View one of Santa Ana's scene diagrams>>

Customize Your Automap Library

By Sergeant Brad Booth

The customizable AutoMap Library in MapScenes Pro contains the line codes and symbols we use when mapping crash and crime scenes. This powerful feature is easy to use. Whether you want your centerlines colored white or yellow, or if you prefer a style of street light or firearm, make that preference the default for your own AutoMap Library. When you download from Evidence Recorder into MapScenes desktop software and process the scene using your AutoMap Library, your custom line types and symbols appear automatically on your map.

You also have the ability to create your own attribute - text that is associated with a particular symbol or line code. If for example you frequently use yellow evidence tents at a crime scene, you can create several different evidence tents. Then when you shoot "evidence marker 75", a 75 is displayed next to the marker. This saves time and creates a very professional looking forensic map.

Another useful feature is the ability to control what layer your attributes, lines, and symbols go on. We can put our evidence tent on a pre-named layer called evidence. We can have the evidence tent attribute go to another layer called evidence_text or other preferred name. Turn the attributes and symbols on and off by turning a particular layer on or off. This is useful for the investigator who is determining the location of evidence items, for when it comes time to print the forensic map, clutter is lessened by turning off the text layer.

Edit your AutoMap Library items by selecting the item and choosing Edit - the AutoMap Editor is opened. From this box, change wording of attributes by typing in the desired text under Plotted Description. I might call the evidence tent “75” instead of Evidence Marker. I can control the size of the symbol using the Symbol Scale Factor, and place the attribute on a particular layer by selecting the layer of choice under the Description Text Layer. If you want to place the evidence tent on a particular layer, select the layer under the Symbol Insertion Layer.

This just scratches the surface of what you can use the AutoMap Library for. If you collect measurements manually, there is a simple way to use the Z method and AutoMap Connection. It takes a little time to set up the libraries, but your at-scene time will be considerably reduced and less map enhancing will have to be done in MapScenes desktop software.

Brad Booth is a MapScenes Trainer and an adjunct instructor at the South Dakota Law Enforcement Academy and at Western Dakota Technical Institute. He is also a forensic specialist for the Rapid City, South Dakota Police Department.