Fingerprint Pore Comparison Using Local Features and Spatial Relations

Abstract

High-resolution fingerprint recognition has been a hot topic for many years. Compared with a traditional fingerprint image, a high-resolution fingerprint image can provide more features, such as pores and ridge contours. Introducing these features into fingerprint comparison and recognition can improve the recognition accuracy and reduce the risk of identification errors. This paper proposes a novel method for comparing pores on high-resolution fingerprint images. The method can be divided into two steps. In the first step, fingerprints are aligned using the pixel-category-distance-based data-driven descending algorithm. Traditionally, fingerprints are aligned based on feature points, such as minutiae and singular points. Such alignment methods are not suitable when dealing with partial fingerprints because small overlapping areas often do not contain enough features to guarantee a correct alignment. In this research, the ridges and valleys on fingerprints are used in combination with the orientation field for alignment. The proposed algorithm performs well when aligning both partial and full fingerprints. The common areas between the two images can be estimated based on the alignment result. In the second step, pores lying in the common areas are selected for comparison. To improve the comparison accuracy, pores are compared using local features and spatial relations. A graph comparison algorithm is designed in this step. The experimental results show that the proposed method is more accurate than other state-of-the-art pore comparison algorithms.