Slideshow: 3-D Imaging Goes Ballistic

A device sold by Forensic Technology uses the new technique to image a bullet in 3-D and in microscopic detail, to produce more accurate matches than existing 2-D systems.

To test for a match, police examiners line up an array of numbered bullets and fire them from a suspect gun into a tank of water. The spent rounds then go to the ballistics-imaging machine.

The 3-D topology of a firing pin impression.

The same 3-D imaging technology can match tools, like a wrench or a screwdriver, to the marks produced by them. Here, a pair of wire cutters is matched to a piece of cut wire.

3-D imaging can create a virtual cross section of a bullet's surface.

The 3-D topology of a bullet's breech face impression.

Funded by the Justice Department and the National Science Foundation, Intelligent Automation's technology projects white light through a special microscope onto a bullet or its casing. The depth of the marks determines the intensity of the reflected light, which is recorded by a camera.