Essex: New Police 3D Crash Scanner

Roads in Essex could re-open sooner after car crashes thanks to a new 3D police scanner.

The device digitally records a scene, providing officers with a 3D image they can examine later. 

PC Alan Barlow from Essex Police explains how it works: "You set it up, push a button and it goes all on its own. "It records over 120,00 individual points every second and that can be downloaded onto a computer to generate a 3D world which every individual point is measurable. 

"We can then go onto to produce plans from, take videos from or run animations with." 

He says it means a move away from how a scene is surveyed at the moment: "You had to put a pole on the end of every point you wanted to take, record every individual point and then draw up a series of lines to create a plan of a collision scene." 

It is hoped it will speed up the process of surveying a scene and gathering evidence and roads could re-open up to an hour sooner than before.