A photogrammetric method for stature estimation: Reliability and validity

The identification of subjects by means of image comparison has already been used in the past; however, the advent of new image elaboration software has provided a new impact and new resources useful for the application of techniques for the identification of the culprits. This study has been carried on at the Department of internal medicine and public health of the University of Bari, Italy, during the year 2011 to investigate the possibility of determining the stature of a subject by means of photogrammetry. Preliminarily, actual heights (in Cm) were obtained by measuring a selection of 288 people including subjects ranging from 150 Cm to 200 Cm with a metallic pole; they were all photographed while standing in a doorway, so as to simulate the images of subjects taken in the doorway of a bank. The selected subjects were measured by a standardized method. The frames obtained were elaborated (by another operator who was unaware of the actual heights) using professional software to determine the height of the people selected using a grid technique. The use of frames for forensic purposes can be considered useful only when the subject is filmed in a static position (i.e., inside the bank doorway). The mean differential values between the actual height and the height measured in people standing, ranging from - 0.90 Cm to + 1.24 Cm, confirm the reliability of the technique. The validity of the technique for the measurement in motion is unreliable, owing to the high variability between the actual heights and the measurements obtained by a professional image editing software (ranging from - 3 Cm to + 6 Cm). © Maxwell Scientific Organization, 2012.