Initial focus is on collision investigation
NOTTINGHAM, UK – As 22 police forces across the UK begin to integrate their 37 new laser scanners, bought with government grant funds, into their day-to-day operations, it makes sense that they might want to talk amongst themselves.
Enter 3D Laser Mapping, Riegl’s distributor in the UK, which sold many of the scanners to the individual police forces. They’ve developed and launched a new web site, police.3dlasermapping.com, which is dedicated solely to forensic use of laser scanning technology. It debuted this week with a focus on collision investigation, which is natural considering the UK grant money was meant to speed up crash scene investigation and clearing.
If you go there and you’re not an officer of the law, however, it might not seem like much. There are some public-facing pages with some cursory information, but all the good stuff is behind the member wall, and “you have to have a valid police email address to use it,” explained Charlie Whyman, business development manager at 3D Laser Mapping.
“You can download papers, access information, and there’s a forum,” she said. “It’s a place where any collision investigator can log on and speak to other people in the industry about their experiences and any problems that they’ve found. There’s not really anything available to them that’s like that at the moment.”
Sure, there are LinkedIn and other forums about laser scanning in general, but nothing that’s gated where police can feel comfortable discussing their investigation tactics.
Nor does 3D Laser Mapping intend for it only to be used by their own customers. “It’s not meant to be limited to Riegl users,” Whyman said. “We’re encouraging anyone to use this forum and have access to the information.”
Stay tuned for an extensive SPAR report on the UK scanner-purchase initiative and deployment in the near future.
