Operational Projects Unit Turns Evidence into Visuals of Crime Scenes
The OPU is small but highly skilled. Nearly three dozen professionals work in the unit, with about two-thirds serving as hands-on specialists who design physical models, build digital reconstructions, and craft advanced visual exhibits.
What sets this team apart is its unusual blend of expertise. Among its members are former law enforcement officers, engineers, forensic artists, computer animators, and even professionals with backgrounds in theatrical set design and interior architecture. One specialist traveled to Scotland to study forensic art, a discipline taught at only a handful of institutions worldwide.
Visualizations based on meticulously measured and mapped crime scenes are critical not only for investigators but also for prosecutors, who rely on them to explain complex scenarios to juries. Crime scene measurements using high-tech tools can include millions of data points. There is also a level of artistry required to bring the imagery to life.
Unit Chief Suzanne Brown knows the value of this diversity. Educated in the studio arts, but professionally trained in 3D digital design, she leads a team that thrives where art and science intersect.
“I never would have thought I would be applying the math and science from my high school and college years in equal amounts to the visual products I produced in OPU,” Brown said. “Equal parts of left- and right-brain thinking are required to do this job.”
OPU builds models like this of Boylston Street in Boston to help jurors understand crime scenes at trials.
Training on a total station, which measures horizontal and vertical angles and distances.
A photographer in the Operational Projects Unit takes photographs during a training exercise. Behind him on a tripod is a 3D scanner for mapping crime scenes.
Their work often begins at the scene—whether it’s a crime, a large-scale disaster, or another complex event—where precision is critical. The OPU deploys a suite of advanced tools:
- Cameras: High-end digital cameras and advanced techniques used to capture critical evidence
- Total stations: Survey-grade instruments that pinpoint the exact location of evidence, such as bullet strikes
- Laser scanners: Devices that fire millions of laser points to create a “point cloud,” a digital replica of the scene accurate to the millimeter
- Drones: Used to capture aerial imagery of expansive sites, from open fields to large public venues
- Aerial imaging aircraft: A specially equipped small plane outfitted with sensors and cameras to map disaster zones or scenes too vast for ground tools
A digital arm scanner can precisely measure skeletal remains and record data that can be used to accurately recreate the remains using 3D printing technology and protecting evidence.
Back at the Lab, OPU specialists transform these datasets into layered digital models, interactive diagrams, and time-sequenced animations that can illustrate everything from a suspect’s movements to ballistic trajectories. These visualizations are critical not only for investigators but also for prosecutors, who rely on them to explain complex scenarios to juries.
The unit is also home to the FBI’s forensic artists—professionals who do far more than sketch suspects. They create age-progressed portraits of long-missing persons, reconstruct faces from skeletal remains using clay or digital imaging, and produce postmortem images to help families and the public identify the unidentified. This painstaking work has resolved countless cases, giving names back to the nameless.
OPU Unit Chief Suzanne Brown working with clay years ago on a facial approximation.
OPU drones can provide accurate readings of crime scenes from above.
The OPU’s impact is far-reaching. Its reconstructions have supported major investigations, secured plea agreements, and helped win convictions—quiet triumphs built on meticulous attention to detail.
For Brown and her team, the mission is simple but profound: transform fragments of evidence into a narrative that reveals the truth.
“There is no other place in the FBI that I’d rather be,” Brown said. “You’re just not going to find another job like this elsewhere.”
