Forensic Footwear: A Retrospective of the Development of the MANTIS Shoe Scanning System

Abstract

There currently are no shoe-scanning devices developed in the United States that can operate in a real-world, variable-weather environment in real-time. Forensics-focused groups, including the NIJ, expressed the need for such a system. To accomplish this, there was first a need to collect a large amount of sample data to train a first-of-its-kind machine-learning model. The work aimed to develop a system to collect shoe scans of a populace in real-time as they walk without committing privacy violations. This system would be able to identify specific traits found on the soles of the shoes, enabling insight into the origins of the shoes, where and how they are worn, as well as the people who wear them. The primary question of this research is if we could develop a prototype of such a system and what challenges would have to be overcome to make this possible.