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 Scientists help police bust forgers

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Date posted: 10/08/2004

Forging wills and bank cheques could now be near impossible thanks to a team of physicists in Rome. Professor Giuseppe Schirripa Spagnolo, Carla Simonetti and Lorenzo Cozzella from the Universit? degli Studi ?Roma Tre? in Rome, Italy, have devised a forgery detection method that creates a 3D hologram of a piece of handwriting and analyses tiny variations and bumps along its path using two common scientific techniques: virtual reality and image processing.

Schirripa Spagnolo?s team create 3D holograms of the path of a piece of writing, generating an image on a computer that looks like a ditch or furrow. This makes it easy to analyse variations or ?bumps? generated by the writer?s pressure on the paper at cross over points, for example the mid-point of the figure eight.

Professor Schirripa Spagnolo said: ?Using image processing and virtual reality makes it easy to detect the presence of bumps at cross-over points. Finding these bumps allows experts to easily determine the sequence of strokes in a piece of handwriting and the tell tale signs of a forgery or original. Another benefit of this technique is that it doesn?t damage the sample.?

The Rome team used their technique, known as ?3D Micro-Profilometry? to analyse hundreds of different handwriting samples made using a variety of different paper types and pens. They have also applied their technique to wills and cheques and successfully detected forgeries in both.

Professor Schirripa Spagnolo said: ?We believe this type of 3D micro-profilometry is one of the most promising ways of detecting forged handwriting, and it will be a powerful tool for forensic experts around the world.?

See the full Story via external site: www.iop.org



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