Patent ID: 7197168

Claim:
A method for acquiring a plurality of biometric image frames from a sensor and generating a reconstructed composite image from at least some of said plurality of acquired biometric image frames, said method comprising: (a) acquiring a frame from said sensor and storing the acquired frame in a memory as a last stored frame; (b) comparing the stored frame to the reconstructed composite image to determine any usefulness and any alignment registration relationship between the acquired frame and said reconstructed composite image that is being generated; (c) updating the generated reconstructed composite image to incorporate at least a portion of the acquired frame to extend the length (height) of the generated reconstructed composite image and storing the updated generated reconstructed composite image in a memory; (d) determining if frame acquisition should be stopped according to a frame acquisition stop criteria; and (e) if it is determined that frame acquisition should be stopped then stopping acquiring frames and identifying the then currently updated generated reconstructed composite image as the final generated reconstructed composite image, and otherwise repeating the procedure of acquiring additional frames through determining if frame acquisition should be stopped until it is determined that frame acquisition should be stopped.