3D cameras capture Southern California crime scenes and allow freeways to reopen much quicker

Crime-scene models with detailed measurements once took hours to collect.

Now, law-enforcement agencies are increasingly turning to new technology to help speed up the work and better collect evidence: laser scanner technology, long a mainstay of construction and surveying work.

The menu screen on a 3D laser. (Photo by Leonard Ortiz, Orange County Register/SCNG)

The technology is rapidly replacing the old days of crime-scene investigators crafting hand sketches and using tape measures to laboriously take down measurements.

It centers around a device that looks, at first glance, like a camera, which is its — but it can create 3D-like images. It’s roughly as big as a shoebox and sits atop a tripod and holds a spinning mirror and a laser.

The device rotates 360 degrees, also scanning ver