Quantitative evaluation of footwear evidence: Initial workflow for an end‐to‐end system
Abstract
In the United States, footwear examiners make decisions about the sources of crime scene shoe impressions using subjective criteria. This has raised questions about the accuracy, repeatability, reproducibility, and scientific validity of footwear examinations. Currently, most footwear examiners follow a workflow that compares a questioned and test impression with regard to outsole design, size, wear, and randomly acquired characteristics (RACs). We augment this workflow with computer algorithms and statistical analysis so as to improve in the following areas: (1) quantifying the degree of correspondence between the questioned and test impressions with respect to design, size, wear, and RACs, (2) reducing the potential for cognitive bias, and (3) providing an empirical basis for examiner conclusions by developing a reference database of case‐relevant pairs of impressions containing known mated and known nonmated impressions. Our end‐to‐end workflow facilitates all three of these points and is directly relatable to current practice. We demonstrate the workflow, which includes obtaining and interpreting outsole pattern scores, RAC comparison scores, and final scores, on two scenarios—a pristine example (involving very high quality Everspry EverOS scanner impressions) and a mock crime scene example that more closely resembles real casework. These examples not only demonstrate the workflow but also help identify the algorithmic, computational, and statistical challenges involved in improving the system for eventual deployment in casework.
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Cited by
Still being checked.
- Authors
- Venkatasubramanian, G., Hegde, V., Lund, S. P., Iyer, H., & Herman, M.
- Affiliations
- National Institute of Standards and Technology (US)
- Corresponding author
- Herman, Martin
- Venue
- Journal of Forensic Sciences
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2021-08-10
- Volume
- 66
- Issue
- 6
- Pages
- 2232-2251
- ISSN
- 0022-1198 (ISSN-L)
- 1556-4029
- OpenAlex
- W3191879567
- Semantic Scholar
- 0042cfa9298a676ddff75d4de95b77e4312cbded
- Cited by
- 8
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 1 · 2024: 2 · 2023: 2 · 2022: 1 · 2021: 1
- FWCI
- 0.42
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Journal of Forensic Sciences (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- National Institute of Justice (DJO‐NIJ‐17‐RO‐0202)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Biomedical Engineering › Gait Recognition and Analysis
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Signal Processing › Biometric Identification and Security
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Image Processing and 3D Reconstruction
- Keywords
- cognitive biases, reference database
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