On March 14, 2024, hr-Fernsehen, the regional television station of Hessischer Rundfunk, filmed at the Department of Forensic Medicine at the University Medical Center of Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. In a week-long series of segments on “hessenschau,” viewers will be introduced to new methods in forensic medicine and to collaborating institutions, such as the Hessian Police.
Constantin Lux and Kerstin Jeppe are being filmed during a discussion of the results. Photo: Martin Schlüter, CC BY SA 4.0
i3mainz was also involved in the filming. As part of the EMPOWER pilot project VCSA3D —Virtual Crime Scene Assessment and Analysis in Cyberspace—a method was developed last year to create high-resolution, textured 3D models of corpses based on photogrammetric images, so that autopsy findings can be digitally preserved to scale.
Under the leadership of forensic pathologist Dr. Constantin Lux, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martin Schlüter, and research assistant Kerstin Jeppe, M.Sc., explored the complex interplay of various hardware and software components and summarized a recommendation for capturing and evaluating the necessary data in a step-by-step procedure tailored to the specific application during autopsies. In the course of this collaborative research project, impressive findings were obtained that will have a lasting impact on the documentation of autopsies.
Florian Kreitmeier, a master’s student in Applied Computer Science and Geodesy, was filmed by the hr film crew as he applied the developed workflow during an autopsy. In addition, Constantin Lux and Kerstin Jeppe demonstrated the impressive digital results of the method and each gave interviews about the collaboration.
The hr-Fernsehen segment was broadcast on May 6, 2024, from 7:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. on *hessenschau*.
