Many Faces of Iris Qua

Iris Quality Calibration and Evalua

NIST

Elham Tabassi

tabassi@nist.gov

301 975 5292

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
IREX II – IQCE

motivation

∸ Deploying iris recognition technology is ra

gaining acceptance and support in governidentity management applications.

∸ ISO/IEC JTC 1 SC 37 initiated Iris image qu

standard (ISO/IEC 29794‐6) in July 2009.

∸ The problem of iris quality is still lacking 

evaluation.

∹ No established requirements on software or hardwa

images

∹ No established requirements on iris image covariate

∹ Claims need empirical validation

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
IQCE is ...

∸ The 2nd activity under

∸ Funded by DHS S+T

∹ Project “Radical improvement in iris quality assess

multimodal biometric utilization”

∸ An evaluation based program for deve

clear, implementable, and interoperab

standard ISO/IEC 29794‐6.

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
IQCE

Croppedraw image VENDOR SUPPLIED IMAGE QUALITY ASSESSMENT

ALGORITHM (IQAA)

1 Scalar quality

2 .. 17 Defined (standa

18..32 Reserved33..64 Vendor‐defined 

Q

FNMR

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010
Purpose

Push towards zero‐error biom

∸ Radically improve USG / DHS capability to

‐ Identify samples that are likely to cause failures

‐ Quality by design

‐ Bring multi‐biometrics to operational maturity

‐ Focusing on applied biometrics

∸ Impact

‐ Enabling scientific progress in iris image quality definition and 

‐ Improve requirement planning and system design (influential 

‐ Expand marketplace of interoperable products

‐ Quantitative support for development of international iris quality 

‐ Expand NIST’s image corpora + reference implementation

‐ Iris tool box.

∸ Support development of iris image quality standard (ISO/IEC 29

∹ Strengthening the science behind the claims

∹ Preventing over‐prescriptive statements

∹ Introducing tolerance bounds on iris image covariates

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
Progress so far

∸ Developed test scope, protocol, API (Oct – De

- In consultation with industry and SC 37 WG 

∸ Invited participation (Jan 2010)

- Either as a provider of image quality assessm

- Or as a provider of generators AND matche

- Or both

∸ Technology supplied to NIST as SDK (Jan – Au

- With IQCE API- Rounds of testing

∻Evaluated 11 SDKs  ‐ produced 3 interm

∸ Data preparation- Uncompressed raw images ‐ type VGA or CR

ISO/IEC 19794‐6

- Offline archived datasets at NIST + new dat

- Dedicated data collection with specific imag

– Clarkson Q‐FIRE (extracting frames + m

∸ Devise metrics + analysis of results (Jan – pre

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
Progress so far – 2

IQCE :: metrics

Tabassi, Image specific error rate: 

A Biometric performance measureProceedings of ICPR 2010

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010
Progress This Year ‐ 

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
Iris Quality Calibratio

∸ Goal: interpre

providing cont

∸ Value: improve

∸ The calibrated 

the utility of biometric syste

∹ estimated 

false non‐

of leading 

algorithms 

fixed thre

operation

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
What is next

∸ Final Report (NIST IR) (End of Nov 2010)

- Evaluation of iris image quality assessment al

∻ 24 (15 final + 9 intermediate) submissions from 

- A refined list of iris image quality metrics pos

bounds

- Calibration curve per quality assessment algo

- Quantitative support to ISO/IEC 29794‐6

∸ Iris image quality tool box

- Bibliography of technical papers- Software implementations

∻open source or proprietary compiled libra

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
Final Outcome

∸ Guidance document

∹ Identifying procurement ready requirements and 

support of one‐to‐many multi‐biometric systems.

∸ International Standard

∹ Submit technical contribution to SC 37 WG 3 towa

∸ Iris processing toolbox

∹ Expand NIST’s existing implementation of

∻ standards, reference open‐source software

∻ Image corpora.

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
More Upcoming Pla

 IREX III

Large scale one‐to‐many evaluation

Early 2011

 IBPC 2012

Gaithersburg, MD

March 2012

 NFIQ 2.0

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010 
Thank you for you atte

Thanks to sponsors for the

tabassi@nist.gov

301 975 5292

IREX :: http://iris.nist.go

IBPC :: http://www.nist.gov/itl/iad/ig

NIST Biometric Consortium 23 September, 2010