Cutting-edge technology is catching up with the techniques used in the CSI television series to help British police match shoeprints or tyre-tracks found at the scene of a crime within minutes.

Engineers at the University of Sheffield have developed software that speeds up the analysis of forensic details at a crime scene, helping officers to react more quickly.

Using the technology, a digital photograph of a shoeprint or a tyre-track can be transmitted from a crime scene direct to a forensic bureau, where it can be accurately scaled and have its perspective corrected and matched for a particular shoe or tyre model against a database of thousands. The information can be sent back to an investigator in the field instantly.

Fingerprint-matching technology already developed by the university’s vision and information engineering group is used by more than 30 police forces in Britain.

Nigel Allinson, who leads the project, said that there were 20,000 models of shoes in a national database. Officers using the Latent Image Markup and Analysis software could quickly process images of a muddy shoeprint taken with a digital camera and match them against the database.

“As the saying goes, burglars can’t fly and they can often leave shoeprints. They are not as unique as DNA or fingerprints but shoeprints can provide good intelligence for the investigators and help link criminals to crimes,” Professor Allinson said.

The Serious Organised Crime Police Act 2005 gives the prints the same legal status as DNA and fingerprint evidence. Home Office statistics show that 14.8 per cent of crime scenes attended by investigators in 2004-2005 yielded shoe print evidence. Many forces routinely take shoe print evidence from suspects taken into custody.

The fastest match of a set of “dabs” to a person using the university’s fingerprint software is 20 minutes and Professor Allinson hopes that a similar speed will be possible for shoeprints and tyre-tracks.

Typically, before the new fingerprint technology was introduced, the time taken for a set of fingerprints to be matched against an identity was 13 days, he said. Fingerprint marks were recovered from crime scenes by dusting the mark with fine aluminium powder and transferring the mark to clear sticky tape with protective acetate backing.

The new software, unveiled at a major gathering of police forensic experts, was developed with funding from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Home Office. It will be trialled by police forces.

“Forensic science has to be meticulous and there are important standards of proof that have to stand up in court,” Professor Allinson said.

Experts are working to improve the database of tyre-tracks. There are about 3,000 on a commercial database with 14 basic patterns and shapes.

Professor Allinson said that he hoped to extend the software to include matches for glove prints. He said that burglars often wore gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, but that gloves also left marks.

“Gloves have weave-patterns and even rubberised gloves have patterns of knobs on them. These can all be logged and matched and provide important evidence,” he said.

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