Date:  August 27, 2009

It looks like the topography of a plowed field, with ridges of dug-out soil and an occasional clod resting on the crest of a furrow.

It's a fingerprint — revealed in extraordinary detail, clearly defined on an image that can be manipulated to show characteristics that would remove any doubt about a subject's identity.

In Larry Hassebrook's University of Kentucky College of Engineering lab, cameras and projectors are arrayed in ways that obtain three-dimensional images of fingerprints, faces, just about anything -- and to capture these images quickly.

"The fingerprints are not distorted by flattening.  We're actually gathering the fingerprints' topography," says Hassebrook, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and a researcher at UK's Center for Visualization and Virtual Environments.

Hassebrook and his team — UK staff engineer Walter Lundby and graduate student Eli Crane — are in the final stages of developing several prototypes of their system of rapid 3-D scanning.

Their goal is to use Hassebrook's approach — which relies primarily on software he has developed, rather than on expensive hardware — to make low-cost 3-D scanning equipment.

And what began as a project funded by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security is emerging as a multi-dimensional tool that can serve myriad purposes.

"The automobile industry can use this for reverse engineering, quality inspection and other purposes.  It can be used for special effects in movies and gaming.  It can be used in biomedicine, to help make prosthetic limbs or in reconstructive surgery," says Hassebrook.

This does not include the law-enforcement uses.

Already, a Dallas, Texas, firm, FlashScan3D LLC, has licensed the technology for biometrics.  Company CEO Mike Troy says FlashScan3D is 18 months away from production.

Another of the scanner's uses is going to be explored over a three-week period that begins Friday, June 26.  Hassebrook's graduate student, Crane, will take a handheld prototype to the jungles of Honduras.

There, Crane will work with Transylvania University archeologist Chris Begley to gather 3-D data from ancient petroglyphs, stones that have been carved and etched into images by artisans of a long-dead culture.

Crane uses the prototype to collect the data on memory cards.  When he returns, he, Hassebrook and Begley will download the information into a computer and "build" the 3-D images.  It's also possible they could upload the data into a stereolithography machine that can then replicate artifacts with actual models.

"For archeologists, this is going to be huge," Hassebrook says.
 

Dr. Larry Hassebrook shows his hand-held version of a 3-D scanning device in the photo above

Date:  July 1, 2009

As featured in Safe & Secure TV Channel Magazine, Vol. 1, No.1

If only fingerprinting those of us who need a background check was as fun as finger painting and not just an inky dril...press, press, roll. Repeat nine times. Wash, scrub and dry. Return to desk to find a message: "One finger didn't take. When can you return?" Grit teeth and grumble. Recent inkless routines are almost as cumbersome; you just don't stain your IZOD or you iPod.