TACS: a wonderful aid for burglary investigations

The TACS optical system developed by R&D Vision, currently being tested by experts in the microanalysis department at the IRGN [French Military Police Forensics laboratory], is revealing points of correlation between toolmarks left during burglaries. With the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the possible inclusion of Deep Learning in this optical system, TACS is a great help in solving investigations on breaking and entering.

Experts from the microanalysis department (MCA) at the IRCGN [French Military Police Criminal Investigation Institute] are currently conducting tests with their new TACS (Toolmark Analysis Comparison System) analysis system.

Produced and developed by R&D Vision, this optical system is used to view and capture high-resolution images of marks left during burglaries. The marks recorded by the investigators at the crime scenes are photographed and recorded by the TACS system.

The data is stored in a secure database and processed by a correlation algorithm to make comparisons and connections between different cases.

At a time where a burglary takes place every 90 seconds, this system enhances the processing capabilities of toolmark experts during investigations on breaking and entering or damage. Identifying similarities in MOs will therefore no longer be a demanding, manual task with high costs in terms of staffing hours.

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What is behind TACS?

The TACS optical system is composed of a 12 MPix camera (MANTA) with a Macro lens (ZEISS) and XY stages for micrometre positioning (OPTN LASER).

A complex lighting system was designed to reveal microreliefs in the mark. From these microreliefs, image processing detects points of correlation between the marks.

The acquisition, recording and processing of data is managed by a customised customer/server application developed in collaboration with experts in the field of micro-traces.

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A promising development with AI

The IRCGN and R&D Vision teams are already working on developments of the system with the possible inclusion of Deep Learning.

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Replay the TACS optical system presentation video

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