Computer Graphics
What’s In a Graphic Display of Technical Information?
Success. Computer graphics and animation are of immeasurable value in pretrial hearings and courtroom presentations because they provide the visual link necessary for a jury to comprehend the technical testimony of an engineer or scientific witness. The evidence, technical facts and opinions of an engineer or reconstructionist may be complicated. For the layperson – such as a juror – to adequately understand and integrate evidence, facts, and opinions, information must be presented in an organized and easy-to-follow-and-understand format.
Bison Engineering’s full complement of quality graphics and video services simplify, enhance, and clarify the testimony of the expert witness.
What Display Works Best?
The graphics can take several forms:
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Poster size displays help present site plans, equipment cross-sections, auto accident sites, charts, and graphs in either two or three dimensions. One big advantage of displays over video animation is that the witness can easily refer to the display throughout the testimony. Plus, experience has shown that many times other witnesses will refer to the display during the proceedings – thus establishing the expert’s display as a foundation for the case, which adds substantial weight/credibility to the expert’s testimony.
Certain circumstances require videotape animation to replace or supplement poster displays. Computer animation is typically used to recreate real-time auto accidents, show complex plant piping and processes, as well as demonstrate the internal workings of complex machinery, anatomy, or physiological functions. Computer animation can be integrated with actual video footage to substantiate the integrity of the data used to produce the animation.
Bison developed a cost-effective proprietary animation system called Crash TraX, which efficiently animates vehicle accidents by incorporating the principles of speed, distance, and acceleration to determine the position and rotation of each vehicle to an accuracy of 1/30th of a second. Impacts, accelerations, decelerations, rotations, and tractor-trailer off-tracking are incorporated into the animation.
The rule of thumb used to determine what type of graphics (if any) an expert’s presentation requires is simple…if their opinions cannot be expressed verbally in an easy-to-understand method, poster size displays will be of benefit. If the number of displays required to present that opinion or idea is large, videotape animation may be required.
Bison . . . its pictures are worth a thousand words and save thousands of dollars.
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