Footwear Forensics - Sixty Symbols 

Very nice how you have to put on a dress to use Cinderella.

"Ad-I-Das" Oh lawdy

I'd totally watch a Brady forensic channel.

Fascinating device. I suppose if you scaled it up to a size that you can actually walk/run along, you could also use it to diagnose/analyze walking/running/standing medical issues and their potential corrections.

Interesting video, but it didn't seem to confirm the link between Nike Air Maxes and violent crime I was expecting.

Using infrared light would get rid of the background light. Or using polarized light on the camera and the LEDs would reduce the amount of background light that you would have.

Science finally addresses the nature of the sole!

Moral of the story, wear new shoes before a heist.

You can get rid of the black curtain by making the scanning LEDs blink at a certain frequency (something which is not a factor of 50 or 60 Hz) a and then separating the useful signal (that would be blinking at the same frequency) from the constant backround light.

From "OK this... is Cinderella [...]" on, the video is suddenly a lot louder.

Nice one Brady, but when are you going to do pop-pop boats and Richard Feinman's reverse lawn sprinkler (related) ?

This is by the way the same technology used in large scale touch screens such as in museums. They only use infrared leds and cameras.

Im getting movie update notifications on my phone at 12am One more vid then bed. Maybe 30mins of googleing current forensics practices lol. Damn you Brady stealing my sleep!!

Hi Brady, love all your channels and I don't want to miss a video, but I almost missed this one because of the very different thumbnail design. Love! -renzo

This was oddly fascinating

I would love to see a video on total internal reflection, since I don't really understand it at all. It seems like the entirety of the energy of the wave ought to be reflected within the glass (except for some inevitable losses as heat), although somehow a visible wave is transmitted anyway.

He said this technique relies on the object of interest being a good scatterer of light, and demonstrated it with his hand and a pair of pale-soled Converses. I wonder how well it would work on shoes or boots with black rubber soles that don't reflect as much light?

Use infra red LEDs with an IR filter on the camera to not have to mess around removing ambient light (at least for the 'fingerprint' style capture)

Hey Brady, what happened to James (Clewett)? Haven't seen him in ages, loved seeing him in the videos! He was always such a genuine character and such a lovely person to listen to.

Really cool!

That's fascinating! Btw, is that the same technology used on comercial fingerprint scanners?

This glass thingy is how the Microsoft surface table worked. You basically had a glass pane with leds all around and a webcam on the bottom. Search 'diy surface' to learn more. It's pretty cool.

Very clever!

Asda's own make shoes wear away so fast you actually get mostly a genuine foot print ;)

cinderella looks like a great piece of kit

You failed to ask what happens if you have black or dark shoe soles. He (the man) you were speaking to, said if the object on top of the acrylic is good at scattering light (I.e. white objects or light colours) it will reflect light into the angle of the camera (in that case, perpendicular to the acrylic). the easy solution to this is to have the person coat the bottoms of their shoes in white paint/ink but that then defeats the whole feasibility of using this apparatus because you're essentially using the old school method with a new more complicated setup. So the question I propose to anyone reading is this: would another form of electromagnetic radiation (like infrared) work? A portion of the surface not in contact with the acrylic would also reflect/emit infrared but I feel like that could be easily solved with computer image processing.

lol. why did they use white leds?? If they used near IR leds, which are both cheaper and brighter than visible light ones, they wouldn't have to shield the camera from ambient light with a drape and the suspect would be unaware that what they were walking on was some kind of sensor and would be less likely to deceptively modify their gait.

hmmm... LEDs have a fairly monochromatic light. Would it work if you add a filter between the surface and the camera? (and use a coloured LED instead of a white one)

A bit of a PSA: I've read my share of articles that have warned that, unlike what you see in CSI and similar shows, you can't just use any kind of prints for evidence. Fingerprints are good, as is DNA. Footwear can be good if there's something unique about the print that distinguishes it from other people wearing the same shoe (such as a unique wear pattern). Definitely don't assume that any oddball "print" is uniquely identifying somebody.

Nice mate.

Neat! I'll try to replicate something like that!

So is the idea to map the specific shape and wear pattern on a specific pair of shoes - like taking a fingerprint, or is it to capture the walking/pressure/contact pattern of a person? I.e if the would-be thief changes their footwear will the system still be useful?

I thought I had clicked on the wrong channel and nearly bailed before I saw the relevance at nearly 4 minutes. But the big open question is - can you derive a unique signature for a shoe (maybe some kind of index), or is this just a new fangled way of taking a shoe print?

what are those

Oh hey its Snell's law.

What Image Processing software are you using? at 9:00 I think i saw a python icon in the start menu. Are you using Jython and ImageJ?

This is also how certain rain sensors work right?

What's the refractive index of an opaque material?

If I wear ice-skating shoes to rob a bank, you can't catch me now, can you?

Chuck Taylor all stars.

[08:40] What is the purpose of observing one of his feet as being backward?

So, this could also be used by NSA in lieu of surveillance cameras, right?

Please, talk about the Great Attractor !!!!!!!!!!!!

If it relies on the sole scattering light, does it still work with black soles?

What are THOSE!!!

Brady we need to discuss your pronunciation of Adidas.

*Of course* there is a national footwear database.

If it’s to do with refractive index, does that mean wearing a shoe made of glass won’t show anything? If so, then I guess Cinderella was onto something.

Cool scanner, but has their been much critical investigation of this idea that people can be reliably connected to footprints using patterns of wear on the soles of their shoes? I would be interested in knowing the rates of false positive and false negative identification. I'd be concerned that a database of shoe prints could be abused to falsely implicate suspects.

0:53 "ADD-did-dass" Pretty sure it's "uh-DEE-duhs"

I guess this is why a detective or investigator used to known as a "gumshoe." ^_^

Why do I suddenly feel like I'm going to be tracked when walking over a perspex floor...

Why can't you just use pressure sensors to record the footprint instead of creating a new device using total internal reflection?

my exact thought at 4:20 was "What black magic is this?"

so is vantablack shoe soles a counter?

Can you also make videos where you talk to PhD candidates? You know, if they are doing something interesting obviously.

I think it would have been good to say, in the video: "This is something that's been for a few decades now. We're just handling the 'COMPUTER[Phile]' concerning issues." (You know the data base). I fail to see any "physics" here, this is very simplicit forensic science. I know it's been around at LEAST since the 70's... I don't recall the case I watched (yes those "Crime shows"), but I do recall that it's extremely (relatively) old.

Wait, there are people who actually still do crimes without throwing their shoes away? I thought this was as deep in the public conscious as wearing gloves to avoid fingerprints, or throwing away a murder weapon...

From the lower right hand screen image, I thought that James has a serious foot orientation problem.

Bet you would have a field day with me Brady...I only wear shoes in stores from April to November and then they are just a flat leather moccasin...the rest of the time I am barefoot cause sidewalks wear out the leather.

I have shoes bought in the 1970s, one pair has plain leather soles. So do you think that they are on any footwear database? And then there is Prince Charles, still wearing hand made shoes he got in 1968.

I were the cheep flat footed shoes lol

I see 2 big flaws with this to be exploited by someone that's committed a premeditated crime (i.e: they expect to be doing the crime and thus prepare for it and mitigate against a successful prosecution if caught.) 1. Buy new shoes before the crime and safely dispose of them immediately afterwards (or at the next convenient moment). 2. If caught, alter your stance when standing on the scanner so that your feet are weighted differently to normal.

4:15 OK, so this looks like it's exactly how the fingerprint scanners at airports work, except that this is an easier problem because we're trying to distinguish between a decent fraction of a person's weight versus nothing, compared to distinguishing the ridges vs troughs of the surface of the skin. So, although there's clearly physics involved in explaining how the device works, the design of the device isn't really physics at all: it's just re-engineering an existing system.

Does Nottingham U. have a course or class in forensics?

His foot prints on screen are pointed in different direction, looks funny

What is it that drives people to help a group of people that think they know it all ?

it's a little quiet? the video.

now the question is, is it called Cinderella because of the shoe scanning of the dress

"And I would've gotten away with it too, if it wasn't for those meddling Physicists."

coool coool cool

wait... what if the suspects wear different shoes when you check them? Or if they wear bags on their shoes? also, if all converse shoes wear in the same way, then the wrong person could be convicted because their converse shoes wore down the same way the real felon's shoes were worn down

Apollo Justice Case 2, anyone?

isn't this just what they use for finger print for a long time?

ah di das eh?

sup people

So what if i wear shoes with a glass sole? :)

So the moral of the story is, if you're going to rob a bank buy a new pair of shoes first!

Footwear Foreskins.

Comment.

That's kinda cute.

we want the black holes! not this! black holes baby! now!

Am I the only one who thinks he looks like 40 year old Harry Potter?

Of course, some burglars could be barefoot!

Second

Third

Chuck Taylor all stars.