BALISTIKA 2010 : An Automated Firearms Identification System for Forensic Laboratories
BALISTIKA® 2010 is a ballistic image analysis and recognition system with the following characteristics:
High matching performance, user friendly, scalable, capable of extracting and using 3-dimensional data, based on a relational database relating bullets, cartridge cases, firearms, incidences and individuals.
Firearms leave unique marks on fired bullets and cartridge cases when they are used. When the marks on two bullets or cartridge cases are compared, one can determine whether these have been fired from the same firearm or not. In this way, the relations between different events can be established. Comparing cartridge cases or bullets to match those fired from the same firearm is a time consuming and a painstaking task that requires continuous attention.
When the number of evidences to be examined and the archive of evidences are large, then manual comparison becomes virtually impossible. Balistika® 2010 is a project to solve this problem. Balistika® 2010 enables matching cartridge cases and bullets automatically at a high matching performance.
BALISTIKA is a system developed by TUBITAK UZAY, consisting of the software and the hardware, which acquires the 3D data of the cartridge cases and bullets using photometric stereo method, saves this data in the database together with the accompanying metadata, is capable of saving the information about the cases, persons, firearms in addition to the cartridge case and bullet data, compares these by extracting features data from 3D data and gives the probability of them being sisters, is capable of distributing the load of correlation task among the computers within the system, is capable of performing data communications with the other BALISTIKA installations, provides computerized cartridge case and bullet correlation.
BALISTIKA is a ballistic mark image analysis and recognition system. BALISTIKA has three main functions:
1. Data Acquisition: provides the creation of high quality images by means of smart software and hardware.
2. Query and Visualizing: provides the correlation of the created images with the previous data and analyze.
3. Evidence Matching: provides the storage of the information about the images, evidence, cases and individuals by means of server unit and opportunity of matching.