Automatically Detect the Bloodstain Ellipse

Click on the stain and HemoSpat will make a best guess at fitting an ellipse to it. If it needs to be adjusted, use the ellipse control points - a couple of clicks with the mouse and you're done.

Crop

Digital photos from a crime scene often include more information than you really need - sometimes capturing more than one bloodstain. To make analysis easier, crop the image using HemoSpat so you can focus in on the stain of interest.

Zoom

Some digital cameras do not include a macro setting or they may be insufficient for up-close photography. This can result in an image of a bloodstain that is a bit too small to work with effectively. HemoSpat allows you to zoom in so your ellipse selection is as precise as possible.

Invert

In order to increase the contrast between the bloodstain and the background, it is sometimes useful to invert the colours in the image. This is as simple as clicking a button.

Drag & Drop To Manage Your Images

HemoSpat supports the analysis of more than one pattern at a time and includes several ways to import your digital images into the project. Simply drag your images to the window to add it to a pattern or create a new one. Moving stains between patterns is as easy as dragging the image from one pattern to the other.

We don't live in a world where all surfaces are perpendicular, so why should your analysis be restricted to that? HemoSpat has an easy-to-use surface editor that will allow you add any flat surface to the scene for your analysis. These surfaces may be exported to your scene reconstruction software to give you a framework to start from or to double-check that everything lines up properly.

The area of origin is calculated in real time for each pattern. This means that as you change your stain data, the origin is automatically recalculated. Export the data any time you like to see a snapshot in 3D.

HemoSpat saves all the analytical work done by the user. Should you see a problem with one of your strings, it is a simple matter to pull up the individual stain and look at the ellipse, plumb, and scale placement. This also allows for a proper peer evaluation because the evaluator will be able to see all the work that went into generating the final data.

HemoSpat stores its data and the analysis in the project. It is, however, your data and you should be able to use it however you like. You should not have to manually enter this data again into other software for further analysis. Your data may be exported in various formats for reports, directional analysis using other software, or for use in crime scene reconstruction.

HemoSpat currently exports to several formats:

• .csv for input into spreadsheets such as OpenOffice.org Calc, Gnumeric, or Microsoft Excel
• .dxf for input into The Crime Zone^*, AutoCAD, ScenePD, or almost any other CAD software
• .rot for input into Rotater [only available on Mac OS X] to provide 3D visualisation
• .txt for input into The Crime Zone as an ASCII Coordinate file^*
• .txt a basic report generated by HemoSpat itself
• .bti for input into BackTrack/Images 3.x ^**
• .btw for input into BackTrack/Win 3.x ^**

^* DXF and the ASCII Coordinate files have been verified by The CAD Zone to work with The Crime Zone.
^** We no longer include BackTrack exporters because nobody was using them. If required, we can provide them on an individual basis.

We will also provide customised exporting to other formats as long as the details of the format are available.

HemoSpat is available for Mac OS X 10.4, Mac OS X 10.5, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.