Skulls Gain Virtual Faces

rw2 writes "Totally cool, The guys at Max Planck Institute for Computer Science have developed a way to reconstruct a persons appearence when a skull is found. When police find a skull and want to know what its owner looked like, they generally use artists who reconstruct the face by building up layers of clay over the skull."

The missing pieces

[dlosey]

I wonder what it does if a part of the skull is missing. I bet that in many cases, if a skull is found by the police it was a murder. How would the software handle a bullet hole or if part of the skull was crushed. I didn't see it mentioned in the article.

Could be pretty interesting if there was an extra hole in the face and it put the eye in the wrong spot, or even added an extra one.

Now THAT's useful!

[SoTuA]

Imagine all that clay savings! w00t!

Of course, maybe the forensics experts will miss playing with clay...

For archeology, it sounds cool. Will it work on older skulls, or is it homo sapiens only?

(tried RTFA... timeout! slashdotted already?)

Missing details

[GreenCrackBaby]

While this is a very cool idea, the article was missing a few details. For example, did they try it out on actual skulls and see how close they came to the former owner of that skull?

This last little bit of the article doesn't exactly sell this new technology:
' The current prototype figures suffer a problem common to computer-generated faces, said Evison "They look ridiculously mannequin-like."'

Re:sounds useful

[aflat362]

How many times have you seen stories in the news about a badly decomposed body being found and they "think" it might belong to so and so who was murdered . . And it also has interesting applications for anthropology.

So what did the people from africa thousands of years ago actually look like? Has human physical appearance changed over time? According to data collected from the evolution of human appearance what will we look like in the future? I'm thinking huge round skulls but who knows. :)

How accurate is it?

[Iron Monkey543]

How do youo know if the person was a bit overweight and had a double chin or big cheeks? I know I looked ALOT different when I gained about 20 pounds and kept it for a few months till I couldn't afford pizza buffets anymore.

Also, how can a skull help you determine the shape of the person's eyebrows or the shape of their eyes? And they can't use race as a factor because I know alot of caucasians with various eye shapes.

Re:Great, but what are the implications?

[softspokenrevolution]

Yeah, because being able to reconstruct what someone looked like from using only the skull would so help people invade your privacy. You know, if that skull that you have sitting on your desktop is really of your grandmother like you claim. Really, this is probably the most ridiculous idea that I've ever heard. The only way this can be used is if they have a skull, and then the only application is for identification, for you know, terrible airline tragedies where people's skin has been burned all the way off and their teeth knocked out from their skull.

It is really this paranoid conspiracy ideology that demeans from many of the more rational arguments that exist for civil liberties advocates.

Have they ever verified the accuracy of...

[hazman]

such techniques?

I've seen this technique used in "found skeletal remains" crime investigations and archeological investigations and have always wondered if the technique was accurate or just being done for dramatic effect.

Maybe they could dig up a skull of someone who has an available photograph. Give the skull to three "artists" and see how close the results compare.

Even genetics isn't going to help you.

[Thag]

The person is also going to look much different based on the climate, diet, amount of exercise, probably even occupation and social class to some extent.

Jon Acheson

It would better...

[ThePlague]

If they did the inverse: from an external scan of a living person's head, construct what their skull looks like. It would be easy to do with a CT scan, but you need a doctor's prescription for one of those.

Think about it, who wouldn't want a model of their own skull on their desk? Imagine the Hamlet-esque possibilities.

Re:How accurate is it?

[hackstraw]

How do you know if the person was a bit overweight and had a double chin or big cheeks?

Do you question that the ppl on the weight loss ads are actually two different people? If someone shaves thier head and/or eyebrows do you fail to recognise them? Ever seen someone you knew wearing a facemask?

It may not be 100% accurate, but what more can you do with just a skull? I've seen the discovery channel special on this using clay and averages for the sex, race, etc of the remains, and they had a damn good likeness to the original person (its how they ided the girl).

Re:Nonsense.

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you can determine a suprising amount of information from skeletal remains.

Race. Gender. Age. Height. Weight. Reliable clues to occupation.

From just a skull, one can reliably determine age based on the skull sutures, and can be fairly sure of gender based on characteristics of male and female skulls (male skulls have more pronounced brow ridges, more pronounced musculature attachment points--they are "robust". Female skulls have less pronounced ridges and musculature attachment points--they are "gracile").

One can tell from joint wear patterns whether someone was a laborer or desk jockey. Dental wear and dental work indicate socioeconomic status. Wearing eyeglasses makes detectable changes in your skull.

There's a lot you can learn from a skeleton. I suggest you read

• Dead Men Do Tell Tales: The Strange and Fascinating Cases of a Forensic Anthropologist

by William R. Maples.

Jim Deane

Re:Pretty neat

[imaginate]

This is amazing - the guy who makes the joke gets only a 3, but the guy who explains the (unbelievably obvious) punch line gets the +4 funny.

This comment should be modded redundant, just like the one below it. Stupid mods... (and no, I'm not that new here, so you're right, I should be used to it by now)

Re:Old news. Like, 3,000 years old.

[operagost]

And I liked that the whole conclusion that they had found nefertiti was based on "If its not Nefertiti, who else could it be?" Gee I dunno, maybe one of the other BAJILLION people who lived in egypt?

Well, she was female, aged from 25-30, and must have been a Pharaoh because her right arm was bent across her chest. Mere queens or other royalty bend the left arm (or not at all). That was the clincher. Guess you weren't paying attention.

If it wasn't her, then there's some other female Pharaoh we haven't discovered yet.