Student project to help police identify criminals

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

A POLICE cartographic sketch done manually is now a thing of the past in the age of computers. With iSketch, a science project of Saint Louis University students, the police will now be able to identify crooks with witnesses providing details of facial features of criminals.

The project was recently adjudged as the Best Project of the Year in the Bank of the Philippine Islands –Department of Science and Technology (BPI-DOST) Science Awards.

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A Bachelor in Science in Information Technology Student, 19-year-old Sarah Jane Calpo, led the team which has developed iSketch to enable the Philippine National Police identify criminals better than the existing Facefit technology currently used.

Facefit, a feature-based Computerized Composite Illustration System used by the police has yielded significant improvements over the hand-drawn methods but problems such as limited sets of facial feature images to choose from and the complexity of using Adobe Photoshop in editing the facial composites makes it difficult for policemen to actually identify criminals.
Calpo claimed the Facefit technology is also not available in all police stations as it is an expensive software compared to what the students have developed since iSketch may be accessed by police stations through the Internet.

Compared to existing police technology in Facefit which stores approximately 700 facial images, iSketch will have a bigger library of facial features for witnesses to choose from.

The group of students also emphasized iSketch, a web-enabled facial composite illustration system, supports adding of facial feature images, providing witnesses more options when describing a facial feature of criminals.

Also included in the iSketch is a basic photo editing feature integrated to the system, making the process of creating facial composites less complicated than using Adobe Photoshop.

“These improvements can lead to more accurate sketch result, helping the PNP achieve more efficiency in solving crimes,” student researchers stressed.

With this achievement, Calpo’s team won for them P50,000 cash prize, a scholarship from DOST Science Education Institute for a masteral or doctorate degree and a trophy.

Second and third place winners came from science projects from UP Los Baños and Ateneo De Manila University.

This is the second year in a row for SLU to win the science competition as last year, then BSIT student Ahmed Khayef also won the Best Science project award in same competition for his translation software.

Other finalists from SLU who were part of the 30 finalists nationwide also include Biology student Leanne Eusebio’s research “Current Status of Moss Flora of Mt. Santo Tomas, Tuba, Benguet: Impacts and Implications” and Mark Jasper Casabar for his research "Anti-Overloading and Helmet Detector System for Motorcycles."

Both finalists also won P25,000 cash and trophies from BPI-DOST.