Saturday, July 04 2009 @ 07:48 AM EDT  
About HemoSpat
Bloodstain pattern analysis is a field of forensic science which has been evolving for several years. As with any discipline, keeping current is very important. FORident Software's HemoSpat brings the crime scene analyst the latest in bloodstain pattern analysis software.

Performing the directional analysis of projected stains at a bloodletting scene can provide the bloodstain pattern analyst with crucial information. Consider the current methods:

Sample bloodstain with scale
  • Physical stringing at the crime scene - requires the use of disposable resources, is time and labour intensive, and depends a great deal on the crime scene analyst's diligence and experience.
  • Mathematical methods - time consuming and leaves a lot of room for mistakes in the analyst's calculations. The analyst may not use enough stains due to time constraints or computational complexity.
  • BackTrack software - forces the analyst to follow specific steps which makes it difficult and time consuming to correct mistakes or allow others to review your work. BackTrack does not allow you to use angled surfaces and has problems with current digital image sizes.

HemoSpat provides the analyst an efficient method of computing the 'strings' and the area of origin for a bloodstain pattern from a crime scene. This data may be used to provide a 3D representation of an impact pattern or for input into crime scene reconstruction software.

Angles of impact Bloodstain pattern analysis follows scientific principles - the analytical methods are specific, robust, reproducible, and reliable. HemoSpat maintains the analytical data from each project making peer review and verification possible.

Software should be simple to use. Its purpose is to help you get your analysis done more efficiently and more accurately. With HemoSpat, the focus is on you, the bloodstain analyst, and how you want to work. We have created HemoSpat to provide the international bloodstain pattern analysis community with solid, efficient, and easy-to-use software.

Take a look at HemoSpat's key features or some screenshots, try out the demo, and contact us for more information.

 Forum   Subject   Date   By 
Demo Stains not showing in Demo Wed Jan 21, 2009 7:49 pm Andy Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis HemoSpat v1.2 Released Thu Dec 18, 2008 2:07 pm Andy Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Last year Project Tue Dec 16, 2008 12:50 pm Andy Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Terminology Wed Sep 03, 2008 8:42 pm Andy Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Michael McQueen - Gaithersburg, Maryland USA Fri Apr 25, 2008 8:35 am Kevin Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Final year project Thu Feb 14, 2008 10:33 am Kevin Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Showtime's Dexter Tue Aug 28, 2007 8:35 am Kevin Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Ian Bush - Houston, BC, Canada Sat Nov 17, 2007 10:51 pm Joe Slemko Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Mr. Pat Laturnus - Ontario Police College, Canada Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:47 pm Kevin Latest Reply
Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Lana Clarkson - Alhambra, CA, USA Thu Jun 21, 2007 10:54 pm Kevin Latest Reply

News: Ottawa Business Journal Article

Wednesday, February 04 2009 @ 11:20 AM EST
The 2 February 2009 print edition of the Ottawa Business Journal has an article on FORident Software in it called "Blood on the lab floor".

It is now available on their website here.

News: HemoSpat v1.2 Released

Thursday, December 18 2008 @ 01:09 PM EST
FORident Software is pleased to announce the release of HemoSpat v1.2 for Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 and Windows 2000/XP/Vista. The biggest changes are the addition of MacOS X 10.5 and Windows Vista support, the ability to use relative stain locations, and increased efficiency using quick stain entry.

There are a few other changes and fixes as well. For a complete list of changes, please see this forum post.

We look forward to hearing from you!

News: IABPA Conference 2008 - Boulder, Colorado, USA

Tuesday, October 14 2008 @ 03:02 PM EDT
Last week, Kevin and I attended the annual IABPA training conference in Boulder, Colorado. By all accounts it was a very successful conference - well organized, good talks, good workshops, and it was great to see old friends and make some new ones.

There were about 147 participants from all over the US, Canada, Europe, and Southeast Asia. There were even students from Japan and The Netherlands who paid their own way to the conference. The Rocky Mountain Association of Bloodstain Pattern Analysts [RMABPA] and Boulder Police Department conference organizers - Tom 'Griff' Griffon [Colorado Bureau of Investigation], Colleen Wilcox [Boulder Police Department], Rich Tewes [Pioneer Forensics], and their team - did a great job with the 'new' 4-day workshop format.

There were some very interesting talks - one that stands out for me was Michael Maloney's [no relation!] talk on Combat Crime Scenes in Iraq and how the US Naval Criminal Investigative Service [NCIS] team had to modify their SOPs and equipment to work in a war zone. There were also some pretty choice quotes - Gary Gillespie [Environmental Science & Research, New Zealand] "Why couldn't there have been five?" and LeeAnn Singley's [Grayson Singley Associates] comment about her "clock".

As with previous conferences I had a great opportunity to demonstrate HemoSpat and discuss it with attendees. I'd like to thank all those who took the time to let me give a quick demo for the very positive response. We also met with some licensees and had some great feedback. This may result in a research project with one of our European licensees which would be quite exciting for me.

Special thanks to Sheri Shimamoto [Lakewood, Colorado Police Department] who drove us around the Red Rocks area after the conference was over. Given that we were attending the conference the majority of the time we were in Boulder, it was great to see a tiny bit of the country.

I look forward to seeing everyone again in Portland, Oregon next year!

Andy Maloney
Lead Developer, HemoSpat

News: Bloodstain Pattern Analysis Terminology

Tuesday, September 02 2008 @ 11:28 AM EDT
We've added a section on the website dedicated to bloodstain pattern analysis terminology.

There are several differing terminology and classification systems used in the field of bloodstain pattern analysis. We've chosen to present the IABPA's accepted terminology from their suggested terminology list and course outlines. The images we've included are meant to serve as general examples to exhibit the characteristics of each type of bloodstain pattern. We've also included the alternative terminology for each of our examples.

Whether you're an analyst, a forensic science student, or just someone interested in the field of bloodstain pattern analysis, we hope you'll find this resource useful.

News: European IABPA Conference 2008 - Zürich, Switzerland

Sunday, July 20 2008 @ 09:16 AM EDT
Earlier this month, Kevin and I attended the 2nd European IABPA conference in Zürich, Switzerland.

This conference saw about 140 participants from 23 countries and was quite an interesting one. The main organizers - Sabine Hess and Andreas Schweizer [both of the Wissenschaftlicher Dienst, Zürich, Switzerland] - did a fantastic job of keeping things on track and running smoothly. Silke Brodbeck [Blutspureninstitut, Germany] did a great job organizing the talks.

There were a few interesting talks on crime scene reconstruction, several talks which generated interesting evening discussions, and presentations on the state of bloodstain pattern analysis in France and Canada. The Complex Bloodstain Patterns workshop by Brian Allen [Ontario Police College, Canada] was particularly useful to me as it helped me put our work with HemoSpat into context.

It was great to meet with licensees face-to-face and discuss potential improvements to HemoSpat, and to hear HemoSpat mentioned in several of the talks. We also were fortunate [?] enough to participate as members of the "Vineyard Escape Team" on the night of the banquet. Sadly one member of the team was injured and required surgery to his arm.

After the conference, Kevin and I were fortunate enough to be invited by Martin Eversdijk [Forensic Police Amsterdam-Amstelland, The Netherlands] to tour their new forensics labs in Amsterdam, and by Martin Roos [Netherlands Forensic Institute, The Netherlands] to tour the NFI building in The Hague. These tours were very interesting as we got to see different aspects of forensic services in The Netherlands. [Thanks also to Dennis Boon of the NFI for the tour and to Jos Klemm and Ger Coolen of the Regio Politie Limburg-Zuid for the lift to Maastricht!]

See you in Boulder, Colorado, USA!

Andy Maloney
Lead Developer, HemoSpat
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