Review of Animations

Animation of motor vehicle accidents is becoming more common in accident reconstruction and is usually presented in VHS tape format or DVD, written at 25 frames per second.

Most “experts” in this area will create animations based upon kinetic simulation (proper scientific analysis). These types of investigations are usually undertaken using reputable crash simulation software such as HVE-3D, PC-Crash or ARAS360.

However these programs are quite expensive and some investigators without access to them have been known to use less expensive animation software packages and base their processed animations on kinematics modelling (motion considered abstractly without reference to force or mass). In such cases, the animation may look good, but may be misrepresenting a real world scenario.

To assess if a video animation is a true representation of known facts, AIS have the ability to capture and analyse all video frames of an animation sequence, and test the accuracy of both the environment and the animated motions with site data and the laws of physics.

Review of Real Video Footage

Real video footage of an accident scene often revealeS locations of road scars, debris, tyre marks and vehicle positions.

AIS can extract useful survey information from single or multiple video frames utilising photogrammetry techniques and then reduce this information into a scale plan format.