An endpoint minutia describes a ridge that ends. Bifurcation minutia describes a ridge that branches from one to two ridges. Image Processing Larry O'Gorman, Veridicom's chief scientist, developed the image processing and analysis software. Image processing enhances ridge features, reduces noise, and helps extract the print's true minutiae. An adaptive filter matches the pattern of parallel ridges throughout the image to better complete the picture.
Image processing produces a binary image consisting of foreground ridges on a white background.
Image analysis examines all the ridges to locate the minutiae. Minutia information is then passed on to the comparison software. Comparison Software Tony Russo, senior scientist at Veridicom, worked for several years on the matching code. The software takes the list of minutia information and forms geometric relationships among them. Each minutia is related to neighboring minutiae by distance, angle, type and other features.