Skip to main content

Skull, Forensic Evidence of

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Encyclopedia of Biometrics

Synonyms

Craniofacial reconstruction; Craniofacial superimposition; Skull-photo superimposition

Definition

Forensic evidence of the skull is the technique of obtaining the identity of a person based on attributes associated with an individual skull. Generally, the methods of determining the identity of a given skull can be classified into two categories: craniofacial reconstruction, which reconstructs the facial appearance from a given skull based on the assumed relationship between the soft tissue envelope and the underlying skull substrate [1, 2], and skull-photo superimposition or craniofacial superimposition, which superimposes the skull and face photo in a certain way to verify whether they are from the same person, by comparing their feature points [3].

Introduction

In forensic pathology, it is essential to determine the identity of the dead. However, in many instances, due to the storage environment and discovery time of the corpse, the soft tissue becomes highly decomposed, and...

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 899.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 549.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

References

  1. J. Prag, R. Neave, Making Faces: Using Forensic and Archaeological Evidence. John Prag and Richard Neave (Texas A&M University Press, College Station, 1997), 256pp

    Google Scholar 

  2. K.T. Taylor, Forensic Art and Illustration (CRC, New York, 2001)

    Google Scholar 

  3. R. Dorion, Photographic superimposition. JFSCA 28(3), 724–734 (1983)

    Google Scholar 

  4. C. Wilkinson, Forensic Facial Reconstruction (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. C. Stephan, M. Henneberg, Building faces from dry skulls: are they recognized above chance rates? J. Forensic. Sci. 46(3), 432–440 (2001)

    Google Scholar 

  6. A.D. Hummel, Image enhancement by histogram transformation. Comput. Graph Image Process. 6(2), 184–195 (1977)

    Google Scholar 

  7. D.J. Ketcham, Real-time image enhancement technique, in Proceeding SPIE/OSA, Conference on Image Processing, Pacific Grove, 1976, pp. 120–125

    Google Scholar 

  8. M. Kass, A. Witbin, D. Tetzopoulos, Snake: active contour model. Int. J. Comput. Vis. 1(4), 321–331 (1988)

    Google Scholar 

  9. K.F. Lai, R.T. Chin, Deformable contours modeling and extraction. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 17(11), 1084–1090 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

  10. S.R. Gunn, M.S. Nixon, Snake head boundary extraction using global and local energy minimization, in Proceeding of International Conference on Pattern Recognition (ICPR’96), Vienna, 1996, pp. 581–585

    Google Scholar 

  11. P. Besl, N. McKay, A method for registration of 3-D shapes. IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell. 14(2), 239–256 (1992)

    Google Scholar 

  12. C.A. Pelizarri, G. Chen, D. Spelbring, Accurate three-dimensional registration of CT, PET, and/or MRI images of the brain. J. Comput. Assist. Tomogr. 13(1), 20–26 (1989)

    Google Scholar 

  13. W.M. Wells, P. Viola, H. Atsumi, S. Nakajima, R. Kikinis, Multi-modal volume registration by maximization of mutual information. Med. Image Anal. 1(1), 35–51 (1996)

    Google Scholar 

  14. D. Vandermeulen, A. Collignon, J. Michiels, H. Bosmans, P. Suetens, G. Marchal, Multi-modality image registration within covira. Med. Image-Anal. 19, 29–42 (1995)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media New York

About this entry

Cite this entry

Zhou, M. (2015). Skull, Forensic Evidence of. In: Li, S.Z., Jain, A.K. (eds) Encyclopedia of Biometrics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-7488-4_108

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics