A method of identifying characteristics of a marking object comprising the steps of: providing a marked article having a surface having markings caused by a marking surface of the marking object, wherein the marking object is a firearm; wherein the marking surface comprises one selected from amongst a firing pin, an ejector pin, a breech face, a magazine and the interior wall of the barrel of the firearm and the marked object comprises one selected from amongst a cartridge case or portion thereof, a replica of a cartridge case or portion thereof, a bullet, a portion of a bullet and a replica of a surface of a bullet or portion thereof; characterised by: obtaining a 3D dataset corresponding to a 3D virtual model of a 3D surface topology of the marked article by means of a sensor; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface segmentation analysis data indicative of a class of the marking object and storing said data in the database, wherein the surface segmentation analysis comprises dividing a region of the surface into regions consisting of hills and regions consisting of valleys; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface wavelet filtering operation performed on a one dimensional signal characteristic of the marking object of the marked article, said one dimensional signal characteristic obtained by projecting said surface along the direction of a rifling twist, a feature profile representing data corresponding to one or more individual characteristics of the marking object and storing said data in the database. providing a marked article having a surface having markings caused by a marking surface of the marking object, wherein the marking object is a firearm; wherein the marking surface comprises one selected from amongst a firing pin, an ejector pin, a breech face, a magazine and the interior wall of the barrel of the firearm and the marked object comprises one selected from amongst a cartridge case or portion thereof, a replica of a cartridge case or portion thereof, a bullet, a portion of a bullet and a replica of a surface of a bullet or portion thereof; characterised by: obtaining a 3D dataset corresponding to a 3D virtual model of a 3D surface topology of the marked article by means of a sensor; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface segmentation analysis data indicative of a class of the marking object and storing said data in the database, wherein the surface segmentation analysis comprises dividing a region of the surface into regions consisting of hills and regions consisting of valleys; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface wavelet filtering operation performed on a one dimensional signal characteristic of the marking object of the marked article, said one dimensional signal characteristic obtained by projecting said surface along the direction of a rifling twist, a feature profile representing data corresponding to one or more individual characteristics of the marking object and storing said data in the database. obtaining a 3D dataset corresponding to a 3D virtual model of a 3D surface topology of the marked article by means of a sensor; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface segmentation analysis data indicative of a class of the marking object and storing said data in the database, wherein the surface segmentation analysis comprises dividing a region of the surface into regions consisting of hills and regions consisting of valleys; extracting from the dataset by means of a surface wavelet filtering operation performed on a one dimensional signal characteristic of the marking object of the marked article, said one dimensional signal characteristic obtained by projecting said surface along the direction of a rifling twist, a feature profile representing data corresponding to one or more individual characteristics of the marking object and storing said data in the database.