Documenting a crime scene well is super important. Once it gets reopened to the public, there's no going back. You can take all the pictures you want, and they might not cut it, but the Roswell Police have a new future-cop style trick: scanning the whole dang place.


Recently Roswell PD in New Mexico became the one of the first departments to begin using a Faro 3D scanner system, which cost a cool $86,000 in total, but apparently can provide captures accurate down to just a couple of millimeters. And all without the manpower it would take to manually photograph every inch and stitch it all together. It's a dream that's been a long time coming.


The law enforcement benefits of having a full crime scene render are pretty easy to imagine, but it's also interesting (and scary?) to think of what could happen if—or when—this becomes the norm. Scene scans of famous crimes, leaked onto the Pirate Bay, complete with Oculus Rift support? Made-to-order souvenir 3D-printouts of infamous shootings? And that's to say nothing of cops that might try to start scanning everything, all the time.

But most of the creepy side-effects that might be possible are pretty effectively counterbalanced by the incredible value of having such an interactive snapshot to refer to in court. Because if there's any part of a case that deserves the upmost attention, it's the facts.

Now if only I didn't have to go to Roswell and commit a crime in order to see one of these babies in action. [3Ders via Motherboard]