A critical step in automatic ngerprint matching is to automatically and reliably extract minutiae from the input ngerprint images. However, the performance of a minutiae extraction algorithm relies heavily on the quality of the input ngerprint images. In order to ensure that the performance of an automatic ngerprint identi cation/veri cation system will be robust with respect to the quality of input ngerprint images, it is essential to incorporate a ngerprint enhancement algorithm in the minutiae extraction module. We present a fast ngerprint enhancement algorithm, which can adaptively improve the clarity of ridge and furrow structures of input ngerprint images based on the estimated local ridge orientation and frequency. We have evaluated the performance of the image enhancement algorithm using the goodness index of the extracted minutiae and the accuracy of an online ngerprint veri cation system. Experimental results show that incorporating the enhancement algorithm improves both the goodness index and the veri cation accuracy.
at., REF incorporated a fingerprint enhancement algorithm in the minutiae extraction module.
Fingerprint Image Enhancement: Algorithm and Performance Evaluation
IEEE Trans. Pattern Anal. Mach. Intell.
Computer Science