The police and the criminologists have always been plagued by difficult decisions related to autopsies and post mortems of victims. The most difficult of these is the idea of maiming and disfiguring a victim’s body though the reason for the disfiguring of the dead body is noble.

Most friends and families of the victims do not like their loved ones’ bodies to be cut and maimed, though the reason might be noble. The Virtual Autopsy Table developed by Norrkoping Visualization Centre and the Centre for Medical Image Science and visualization seems to do away with the procedure of cutting up dead bodies.

It scans the dead body in as little as 20 seconds and within 15 minutes, the reason for the death is assessed electronically. No damage is done to the body and layers of skin, bones etc can be studied using the virtual images.

Quantitative synthetic MRI is a technique that has been used in the Virtual Autopsy Table, and it provides with scanned images of the dead bodies. Even microscopic details can be ascertained and it could pave way for better investigation of murders, violent homicides and mass murders. Perhaps this brings to an end the policy of cutting up dead victims before the bodies are handed over to families for the funeral.

The Virtual Autopsy Table from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.

Virtual Autopsies from NorrköpingsVisualiseringscenter on Vimeo.