The Beginner’s Guide to Suspect Height Calculation from CCTV

Otherwise known as ‘The Science of Single View Metrology’

The first common question asked to a forensic video analyst is, “Can you tell me what that license plate is?”. The second question is, “What is the height of that person?”.

It is then the forensic video analyst’s responsibility to analyze the video, assess its suitability to answer the question, process and prepare the images, and then finally use science to provide the answer, based on facts.

Taking a ‘workflow’ approach can often safeguard the user from missing vital information that may be relevant further along in the process.

There are a few different methods to attempt an answer to this height question, with different constraints, reliability, and drawbacks. In this post I will be taking an in-depth look at the technique built into Amped FIVE, using the filter Measure 3d.

Continue reading →

What monitor to use?

It’s a common question during training – “What Monitor to use?”

One of the many reasons why people start using software like Amped FIVE is that it installs and runs on any modern Windows PC. There is no need to have huge amounts of hardware or specific configurations. A good, stable setup will work perfectly well.

One of the key purchasing decisions though, when updating or designing a new workstation is the monitor. Some of you may remember that I briefly mentioned monitors in last year’s Advent Calendar: useful tips and tricks in Amped FIVE blog post.

Continue reading →

Amped featured in Fraud Intelligence

Alan Osborn, from Fraud Intelligence, writes about the strong interest shown at the Forensics Europe Expo, by the Trieste, Italy-based company Amped Software, whose technology enables the analysis, enhancement, and authentication of images and video. Amped told FI how it’s very easy to alter an image and change the context and the meaning of that image, but hiding the artifacts that are left behind is much harder.

Click here for the PDF version of the published article.

Why Sotiris Pavlides from Cyprus Police Criminalistic Services believes proper training is important

We love chatting with our users. We are always interested to hear about your views on image and video forensics, what your challenges are, and just simply getting to know you! If you are interested in sharing your story with us, let us know.

Sotiris Pavlides has been an Amped user for many years. His toolbox of digital forensic software includes all Amped Software products. We’ve met many times at industry events and at the numerous Amped software training courses he’s attended. He is an expert user who believes in continuous training in order to be able to keep up with the pace of advancements in digital forensics and technology.

Sotiris, tell us what you are doing at the Cyprus Police.

I am the Head of Photographic and Graphic Lab, of the Cyprus Police Criminalistic Services. I have a Master’s Degree in Communication. Our lab activities include Crime Scene Photography, Forensic Photography, Image and Video Analysis and Enhancement, CCTV Retrieval and Analysis, Facial or Items Comparison, Image Authentication, and etc.

Why did you choose to work in the field of multimedia forensics?

I have always been interested in image and video processing, especially creating funny TV productions where everything can be done. When I joined the police force and started to work in the Photographic and Graphic Lab (it was around the year 2000) I had received the first case about video authentication. This is what made me start thinking about the field of multimedia from another perspective. The new challenge for me was not to know how to create or manipulate a video but to know how to look for traces to identify if a video was authentic or not. Even though it was for analog video, I found the entire procedure, analysis and investigation very interesting.

You’ve been in this role for quite a long time. What do you think are the biggest challenges with multimedia digital evidence and investigating crimes?

I think the biggest challenge is when you have to deal with massive video data coming from different DVRs. We are also faced with problems when we collect or retrieve the footage from these systems. For sure, this is not an easy procedure. Moreover, the video compression (artifacts, loss of details), low frame rates, and in general, the low quality of footage we get from these systems is a challenge.
Continue reading →

What’s wrong with this video?

What’s wrong with this video? Hint: look at the Inspector’s results for width / height.

Unfortunately, the answer in many people’s minds is …. nothing. I can’t begin to count the number of videos and images in BOLOs that attempt to depict a scene that looks quite like the one above. If you don’t know what you’re looking at, it’s hard to say what’s actually wrong with this video.

Continue reading →

Interview with Tomislav Prijanovič, Forensic Expert, National Forensics Laboratory, Slovenia

This is the second in a series of interviews with a number of our users that will share their story. If you are interested in being profiled, let us know. We would love to hear from you!

In this post, we feature Tomislav Prijanovič, from the Slovenian National Forensics Lab. We have known each other since 2006 where we happened to be in the same hotel for the ENFSI Digital Imaging Working Group meeting in Rome. He’s actually one of our first customers and, given the proximity between Trieste and Ljubljana – little more than one hour by car – we meet at least once per year to exchange ideas and share interesting cases. I must say that quite often he amazes me with his skills. Many times, he is able to get incredible results on license plates that at a first glance I deemed impossible.

Tomislav, tell us a bit about yourself. What is your background and your current role at the National Forensics Laboratory?

I am a forensic expert and court witness, working in the Physics Examination Department at the National Forensics Laboratory in Ljubljana, since 1990.

What made you decide to enter the forensics field?

After finishing technical school for electronics, I started working as a video technician. I basically worked on video documentation (video recording and editing) for police purposes, capturing and analyzing images from CCTV. At that time I also had the opportunity to do some work related to photography, like darkroom photography and working as a minilab operator. Due to the rapid development of digital technology (cameras, computer hardware, and software), we started to look for new technical solutions to make our work more effective (less time consuming and higher quality results). After digital cameras and digital video editing systems, getting forensic software was just a matter of time… and money. Continue reading →

Amped FIVE and Griffeye Analyze: Introducing the Integration

You may remember the announcement of our partnership with Griffeye, some months ago. This partnership is especially interesting since we both work on images and videos, but in a different, yet complementary way. Griffeye focuses on finding the needle in a haystack, while Amped focuses on sharpening the needle and verifying it is actually a needle and not a stick.

In the latest release of Griffeye Analyze, the Amped FIVE plugin has been added to the Analyze Forensic Market, but in the near future we plan to also add apps for Amped Authenticate and Amped DVRConv. In this post, we will show you how to start with the integration and how the two software work together.

First of all, we assume that you have installed Amped FIVE (build 9010 or later) and Griffeye Analyze (17.1.0 or later) on the same machine.

In order to enable the integration, you need to click on the button “Analyze Forensic Market”.

Continue reading →

Hands-off the keyboard!

I’ve had a few questions about our tool’s reporting feature, so I thought a blog post would help explain and illustrate the philosophy behind our report creation process. Here it goes.

To understand why we format our reports in the way that we do, you must first understand the legal and regulatory environment in which forensic analysis exists in much of the world. We don’t just create tools in a vacuum. We didn’t make a tool for another industry and repurpose it for forensic science. Amped FIVE is purpose built for the forensic analysis of video and images.

Thus, we’ll start our tour at the ASTM. ASTM’s E2825-12 is at the heart of why our reports are formatted as they are.

More specifically, in Section 4 of E2825-12 it notes the following:

4.2.1 – Processing steps are documented in a manner sufficient to permit a comparably trained person to understand the steps taken, the techniques used, and …

Amped FIVE’s reports are created to satisfy this guidance – every time, automatically.

Continue reading →

The Temperature Tint Filter

We’re back from the Axon Accelerate Conference. What an incredible experience to meet so many law enforcement professionals who are enthusiastic about going from Capture to the Courtroom with reliable tools based in science and fact, not tools repurposed from the art world.

I’d like to share today the answer to a question posed to us at the Conference. The question was, “how do you quickly get rid of that annoying orange color cast that you find in images / videos taken in underground locations or grow houses.”

The answer is the Temperature Tint filter (found in the Adjust filter group). But, before we look at the filter and how it works, let’s talk about about Colour Temperature.

The chart above is from my old book, Forensic Photoshop. It’s helpful to look at colour temperature from the standpoint of the Sun as it rises – the horizon going from warm to cool. Another way to look at colour temperature is with the chart below that places temperature (the Planckian locus in Kelvin) as it relates to the CIE XYZ Color Space.

Continue reading →

Learning & Development

I’m at Schiphol again!

For those unaware, this is the airport in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

I’m often here as I use this airport as a layover for many international flights when I can’t get one from my local airport in the UK.

This time though I have stayed here, in the Netherlands, delivering more Amped FIVE training.

It’s an easy airport to find a quiet spot to type!

I haven’t been able to blog as much as I would like over the past few months as I have been running many different training sessions and workshops. During these, I have noticed an emerging trend but never made the connection until this week.

To lay the foundations for this subject, let’s look at how a large law enforcement agency or a country made up with smaller agencies are commonly organised. I know there are many, many configurations but you should get the picture!!

First, we have a Regional Police Force.