Cameron Tullberg

After graduating from Monash, Cameron combined his interests of policing and graphic design to head Victoria's Criminal Identification Squad.

In the not too distant past police compiling images of "people of interest" used crude "identikit" imagery to capture distinctive facial features.

Now digital animation and computer graphics packages help police in Victoria and other parts of the world capture life-like images of suspects, process closed circuit television footage "CSI style" and present complex evidence in courts in "interactive" formats.

Cameron Tullberg heads up a group of five police and seven graphic artists in the Criminal Identification Squad of the Victoria Police. It's a fast growing area and much in demand.

Cameron's first degree was a Monash Bachelor of Industrial Design. He then joined the Victoria Police hoping to combine his interests of policing and graphic design. He was encouraged by senior police to pursue this career path and was soon back at Monash studying the Master of Multimedia. Within a year he joined the Criminal Identification Squad and is now head of this fast growing unit within Victoria Police.

"Our charter is to present evidence in a graphical form so it makes sense for lay people to understand. It allows people who weren't part of the investigation, who weren't at the scene, to understand the events that occurred and the events leading up to it."

Police prosecutors called on the CIS to present animation evidence around the shootings of crime figures Andrew Venjamin and other gangland victims. Police have also presented evidence to the 2009 Bushfires Royal Commission in "interactive" form.

"It's the whole brief of evidence that would normally be presented to a court in paper form, but it's in an interactive format so that you are able to bring up witness statements, summaries, any animations, so it's the whole brief in one package, on a USB or compact disk."

The animation is commonly 2-D and minimalist. In the case of deaths in the February 2009 bushfires, the animation recreated peoples' movements as the firestorm approached.

While 3-D is available, police have taken a cautious approach, particularly in criminal prosecutions.

"Because it's new technology, it's contested a little. It's not new in particular but because it's new to courtrooms defence barristers want to make sure their client is not viewed prejudicially because of the information that has been presented. So they look over it, in some cases they might want to change it, if it's a point of contention they will often come back to us and say 'we're not happy with the way this has been portrayed', so it's a back and forward sort of approach."

Cameron, now a Sergeant, says Monash staff were very accommodating.

"They knew that I had a career path in mind and that I wanted to develop prototyopes for this sort of thing, to be used by the police, and as a result they were able to alter the course structure slightly to fit this sort of work into the course."

The squad's work with the Bushfires Royal Commission has been noted by police forces in other states. Cameron believes Victoria is leading the country in the application of graphics technology for police work.

A career highlight was being called in by the Australian Federal Police to help with imagery of the 2002 Bali bombing suspects.

"When I started I was a senior constable. Since then I've become the sergeant in charge of the area, purely because of the skills I got from the Master of Multimedia course and was able to do that work and that flowed through into gaining a promotion and now I'm in charge of 12 other people and responsible for pushing this sort of work further and getting it more accepted. I have achieved the goals I originally set for myself, and am now looking forward to bigger and better things."

Cameron has high praise for the postgraduate staff in the Faculty of Art and Design.

"The staff have always been professional and keen to pass on their experiences and expertise, and have treated the students as real colleagues. Also, as many of the other postgraduate students within Art and Design are working within the industry, it has been a great opportunity to meet like-minded people and develop useful networks."

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