Using digital anaglyphy to improve the relief effect of SEM micrographs of bloodstains

Anaglyphy is a stereoscopic technique based on the superimposition of two images of the same view, taken from slightly different angles as well as in two different colours. This superimposition produces a depth effect when viewed through glasses having one red and one green, blue or cyan lens acting as a colour filter. The nearly flat surface of a chip of grey chert was thin-smeared with peripheral human blood. Two months later, the specimen was fixed to a microscope stub as horizontal as possible, coated with gold, and examined via secondary electrons by a scanning electron microscope (SEM). After obtaining SEM micrographs, anaglyphs were digitally generated. The best results were obtained using pairs of SEM micrographs acquired at 10 degrees differing angle and at SEM-stage tilts that were symmetric from the horizontal plane. The relief effect was more accentuated at low magnification. The most ergonomic colour combination for viewing bloodstain anaglyphs was red-cyan. Digital anaglyphy provides a simple and feasible method to improve the relief effect of SEM micrographs of bloodstains. Moreover, as a first consequence of this improvement, the results obtained in this research reveal that the outermost erythrocyte layer of a thin bloodstain - coinciding, in general, with the smear surface - can be much more uneven than that previously suggested by customary SEM micrographs.