Computer-aided skull/face superimposition.

Abstract

By use of a special optical device coupled with a TV camera to match a skull and a photograph of a face, superimposition for the purpose of personal identification was performed in controlled situations. A computer-aided method to evaluate the fit of the superimposition has been outlined by means of an original Shape Analytical Morphometry (SAM) software package yielding analytical descriptions by kth-order poly-nominal equations and Fourier harmonic analysis. The match was carried out by using point-cross error and sum of differences for the Fourier set amplitude. A final comprehensive evaluation exhibited marked differences between congruent and noncongruent superimpositions.