At the end of the described procedures, the user will handle a fully planar sample displaying the whole lateral striae landscape of the chosen bullet.
If requested this will allow one to take in single picture the optical image of all the features present because under low magnification they will be in a single focal plane.
Fig. 1C is an example of the comparison of two replicas where the whole striae landscape of two bullets can be aligned in a single image.
This kind of data allows the direct comparison of class characteristics of the bullet fingerprint and in perspective could prove to be an important tool for a fast and first stage assignment of the class details.
It is clear that, at the level of resolution required to
appreciate the whole surface, microstriae are barely visible and for their direct comparison higher resolution and magnification are required and they will be reported in the following part, to assess the strength of proposed replica method.