Development of a method to recover fingerprints from textured surfaces

Latent fingerprints have a high evidentiary value but are currently being underutilized from textured surfaces like dashboards. There is no current method to lift latent fingerprints from a textured surface. Dashboards are the principal surfaces for several crime types, and being able to lift fingerprints from their surfaces would help investigators. The problem with dashboards is the textured nature of their surface prevents the current methods from working. Enhancement methods looked at is the powder type used for initial enhancement. A lifter or casting material could be used to detach the print from the surface without texture affecting the fingerprint. It was noted that after lifting, the fingerprint would not have high contrast with the surface, so cyanoacrylate fuming and dyed with rhodamine 6G would happen to increase contrast, both cyanoacrylate fuming and rhodamine 6G both works used extensively for current methods to enhance contrast. Lifters and casting materials were neither research in there use for and results on textured surfaces and should be researched more extensively