ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 

Formatted Record and Field 

Extractor

User Guide

NIST/ITL CSD Software: ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 Formatted Record and 

Field Extractor

March 2014

Dylan Yaga

NIST/ITL CSD Lead Software Designer

Fernando Podio

NIST/ITL CSD Project Manager

Christofer J. McGinnis

ID Technology Partners (NIST Associate) Software Developer 

National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)

Information Technology Laboratory (ITL)

Computer Security Division (CSD)
Contents

Contents.................................................................................................................................................. 2

1 Disclaimer........................................................................................................................................ 3

2 Overview......................................................................................................................................... 4

3 Relevant Standards.......................................................................................................................... 4

4 Extractor Input Syntax...................................................................................................................... 5

5 Capabilities of the Software............................................................................................................. 6

5.1 Extract Record(s) by Position.................................................................................................... 6

5.2 Extract Record(s) by Record Type............................................................................................. 6

5.3 Extract Field(s) by Field Number............................................................................................... 7

5.4 Extract Byte(s) after Offset....................................................................................................... 7

6 Additional Features of the Software................................................................................................. 7
1 Disclaimer

ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 Formatted Record and Field Extractor

February 2014

The software was developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology 

(NIST), an agency of the Federal Government. Pursuant to Title 15 United States Code 

Section 105, works of NIST are not subject to copyright protection in the United 

States and are considered to be in the public domain. Thus, the software may be freely 

reproduced and used. Please explicitly acknowledge the National Institute of Standards 

and Technology as the source of the software.

This software is released by NIST as a service and is expressly provided "AS IS." NIST 

MAKES NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING, WITHOUT 

LIMITATION, THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, 

NON-INFRINGEMENT AND DATA ACCURACY. NIST DOES NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT THAT THE 

OPERATION OF THE SOFTWARE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, OR THAT ANY DEFECTS 

WILL BE CORRECTED.

NIST does not warrant or make any representations regarding the use of the software or 

the results thereof, including but not limited to the correctness, accuracy, 

reliability or usefulness of the software. By using this software or by incorporating 

this software into another product, you agree to hold harmless the United Sates 

Government for any and all damages or liabilities that arise out of such use.

Certain trade names and company products are mentioned in the text or identified. In 

no case does such identification imply recommendation or endorsement by the National 

Institute of Standards and Technology, nor does it imply that the products are 

necessarily the best available for the purpose. With the exception of material marked 

as copyrighted, information presented in this document is considered public 

information and may be distributed or copied. Use of appropriate byline/photo/image 

credits is requested.
2 Overview

This document describes the features of the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 Formatted Record and Field Extractor

software. This software was designed to extract biometric and non-biometric data from files that 

conform to the Traditional data format specified in ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011. The Traditional encoding 

format was not changed in Update 2013 of the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 standard; this tool should be able 

to extract fields and records from those files as well. However it has only been tested against files 

conforming to the ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 standard. In addition to extracting data from ANSI/NIST-ITL 

Transactions, the software can display images (when possible) of the biometric sample. For this version 

of the software, this feature has been enabled for the embedded images within Records with image 

compression algorithms of PNG, JPEG, and BMP.

3 Relevant Standards

The following is a list of standards that are relevant to this tool. NIST Special Publication 500-290, 

ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011, November 2011, Information Technology: American National Standard for 

Information Systems - Data Format for the Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial & Other Biometric 

Information 

 NIST Special Publication 500-290 Rev1 (2013) ANSI/NIST-ITL 1-2011 Update: 2013 Information 

Technology: American National Standard for Information Systems Data Format for the 

Interchange of Fingerprint, Facial & Other Biometric Information
4 Extractor Input Syntax

The Extractor software has several user input fields to specify what should be extracted (see Clause 5). 

Although the input fields will accept any input text, the software behind the user interface will perform 

some filtering on the input. All non-numeric and redundant text will be removed before any attempted 

extraction.

Some examples:

 Input of “1, 2 and 3” will be converted to the list [1, 2, 3]

 Input of “3 to 9” will be converted to the list [3, 9]

 Input of “abc2def8ghi1jkl2mno3” will be converted to the list [1, 2, 3, 8]

The only input fields that do not accept multiple values are under Extract Byte(s) after 

Offset: Start Index, and Number of Bytes to Extract. These input fields will still 

remove text, and convert to a unique list, but will only use the first value found as their input.

For example:

 Input of “1, 2, and 3” will use [1] as the input

 Input of “95, 2, 0 and 44” will use [95] as the input
5 Capabilities of the Software

There are several methods of extracting data from a Traditionally Encoded ANSI/NIST-ITL Transaction 

supported. The following sections will describe each of the methods supported.

5.1 Extract Record(s) by Position

A single ANSI/NIST-ITL Transaction may contain multiple Records. The Extractor software parses a 

Transaction and assigns each Record an index number, starting from 0, as they are read. For example, a 

Transaction with 5 Records will have indexes which range from 0 to 4.

Entire Records can be extracted with this method by specifying the position(s) of Records within the 

loaded Transaction.

5.2 Extract Record(s) by Record Type 

A single ANSI/NIST-ITL Transaction may contain multiple Records of the same Record Type. The Extractor 

software parses a Transaction and can recognize the Record Types contained within. The Extractor 

software can extract the first occurrence, or all occurrences of a specified Record Type.
5.3 Extract Field(s) by Field Number

A Traditionally Encoded ANSI/NIST-ITL Transaction has both Binary Records and Tagged-Field Records. 

The nature of Tagged-Field Record Types allows the Extractor software to specify a specific field number 

to be extracted. For example, the Extractor software can extract every field 999 from a Transaction, 

which will extract biometric image data from the Transaction.

5.4 Extract Byte(s) after Offset

This extraction method was designed primarily for Binary Records, but can also work with Tagged-Field 

Records. This method can extract data starting at the specified index to the end of a Record, or a certain 

number of bytes. For example, the Extractor software can extract from Record Type 4, starting at byte 

index 18 until the end of the Record will extract the image data.

6 Additional Features of the Software

In addition to extracting data from ANSI/NIST-ITL Transactions, the software can display images (when 

possible) of the biometric sample. This feature has been enabled for the embedded images within 

Records with image compression algorithms of PNG, JPEG, and BMP.