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Fingerprint Recognition
T.Vinodh, II B.Tech., CSE,
E-Mail: t.vinodh88@gmail.com,
Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy Institute
of Technology and Science,
Udayagiri-524 226,
S.P.S.R. Nellore(dist),
Andhra Pradesh.
1. Abstract
Fingerprint image analysis for
automatic identification technology
has been developed for use in a
number of major applications.
Important industries affected by this
technology include network security
and protection, smart money, ATM
transaction, and biometric identifier
systems for many major government
sectors. In this paper we discuss the
major components of the technology
including the live-scan fingerprint
subsystem, the WSQ compression
algorithm, and the recognition
algorithm.
2. Introduction
The fingerprints have been used
as a mean for identifying individual for
a long time because the fingerprints are
unique and stay unchanged through out
an individual life time. The chance of
two people—even identical twins—
having the same fingerprint is probably
less than one in a billion. Fingerprint
comparison is the most widely used
method of biometric authentication and
the most cost effective. Currently there
are about 200 million FBI cards (10
fingerprints per cards) stored in
cabinets that would fill an area of one
acre. The manual effort of identifying
A.Manikanta, II B.Tech., CSE,
EMail:manimani.manju@gmail.com,
Mekapati Rajamohan Reddy Institute
of Technology and Science,
Udayagiri-524 226,
S.P.S.R. Nellore(dist),
Andhra Pradesh.
and maintaining such a system is very
cumbersome, time consuming and
expensive as the number of finger print
records grows at a rate from 30 to 50
thousands cards per day [1]. With the
advancement of computer technology
the problem of automatic finger print
identification has attracted wide
attention among researchers that
results in automatic fingerprint
identification system (AFIS) available
today. Going in hands with the
recognition problem
is the problem of real-time matching
system for large fingerprint data bases.
Since the storage requirement for such
a large amount of data can be
thousands of terabytes system, data
compression is another aspect of
automatic identification using
fingerprints. Currently the FBI data
compression specification for finger is
the “de facto national standard which
is based on wavelet transform scalar
quantization (WSQ)”.
3. AFIS: Automatic Fingerprint
Identification System
The four main components of
an AFIS system is the scanner, the

recognition algorithm, the search and
query algorithm of the data base and
the data compression algorithm.
3.1 The Live Scanner
The live scanner captures the
finger print at a minimum resolution of
500 pixels per inch in both row and
column and each pixel shall be gray
level quantized to 8 bits. Regardless of
the method and media used by the
scanner, the electronic image must be
sufficient quality to provide conclusive
finger print comparison, successful
finger classification and feature
detection, and can support an AFIS
search reliably. The major
consideration for the scanner is
whether or not it meets number test
procedures that will warranty the
image quality as stated in the
Minimum Image Quality Requirement,
Electronically Produced, Fingerprint
Cards, and Appendix F- IAFIS Image
Quality Specifications.
3.1.1 Modulation Transfer
Function(MTF)
MTF is the point response of the
image capturing system. For each
frequency the Image Modulation (IM)
is computed.
IM = (Max- Min)/ (Min-Max)
The MTF is then computed by dividing
the Image Modulation by the Target
Modulation.
3.1.2 Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR)
For adequate image quality, the
SNR must be less than 125 for both
black and white noise.
The SNR is computed as the difference
between the average white and the
average black value, alternately
divided by the white noise standard
2
deviation and the black noise standard
deviation.
¨ Grey-Scale Range of Image Data
At least 80% of the captured images
should have a dynamic range of at least
200 grey levels and at least 90% shall
have a dynamic range of at least 128
grey levels.
¨ Grey Scale Linearity and Grey Level
Uniformity
Linearity and uniformity of the grey
level must meet a standard to assure an
image quality suitable for AFIS. When
scanning a uniform reference of white
(and black), no two adjacent rows or
columns of length 5 pixels or greater
shall have an average grey scale
different more than a threshold value,
pixel’s grey level must remain within a
deviation from mean value of local
area, the mean grey level of adjacent
quarter inch area shall not differ by
certain value.
3.2FingerprintMatching
The pre-processing aim is to improve
the quality of the image. The pre-
processing has two tasks:
¨ Ridge enhancement
¨ Restoration and segmentation of
fingerprint image
The pre-processing step produces a
binary segmented fingerprint ridge
image from an input grey scale image.
The ridges have a value of ‘1’ and the
rest of the image has value of ‘0’. The
pre-processing steps involve
¨ Computation of orientation field
¨ foreground/background separation,
¨ ridge segmentation ,
¨ Directional smoothing of ridge
Analysis of the fingerprints shows that
the ridges exhibit different anomalies
referred to as ridge ending, ridge
bifurcation, short ridge, ridge
crossovers etc... There are some
eighteen different types of features

enumerated and called minutiaes. The
most frequently used are the ridge
ending and ridge bifurcations.
A typical good finger print has about
70 to 80 minutiae points. Other
complex fingerprint features can be
expressed as a combination of these
two features. The features are normally
recorded as a vector with three
attributes: the x-co-ordinate, the y-co-
ordinate, and the local ridge
θ direction
The finger matching is the matching of
the minutiae sets. This can be done
with number of techniques including
point set matching, graph matching,
and sub-graph isomorphism.
3.3 Fingerprint classification:
Given the database for the fingerprints
is very large, the matching should be
done only on a subset of the database.
To this end, the fingerprints are
classified in to five main categories as
high-level features that can be used in
reducing the search source during a
match. They are: arch, tented arch, left
loop, right loop, and whorl. The
singular points commonly used are the
core and the delta. The core is the
highest point on the innermost ridge;
the delta is the point at which three
ridges radiated from it.
4. The Wavelet Scalar Quantization:
The US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) has formulated a
national standard for digitization and
compression of grey-scale fingerprint
image. At a 15:1 compression ration,
the WSQ is a lossy compression but
can produce archival-quality image.
The compression and decompression is
based on adaptive uniform scalar
quantization of discrete wavelet
transform sub band decomposition.
3
WSQ Decoder
The encoding consists of three main
processes:
¨ The discrete wavelet transform
(DWT) decomposition,
¨ The scalar quantization, and
¨ The Huffman entropy coding.
In the DWT step, the digital image is
split into 64 spatial frequency sub
bands by a two-dimensional discrete
wavelet transform which is a multi rate
digital filter bank. The output DWT
coefficient which is in floating point
arithmetic format is truncated by the
scalar quantization step ("quantized").
The integer indices output by the
quantization encoder are entropy-
encoded by run-length coding of zeros
and Huffman coding. The compressed
image data, a table of wavelet
transform specifications, tables for the
scalar quantizes and the Huffman
codes are concatenated into a single bit
stream of compressed data.
In the WSQ, a two-dimensional
symmetric wavelet transform is
applied to the input image by
transforming first the rows and then
the column yielding four-channel
decomposition. The four sub bands are
then cascaded back through the two-
dimensional analysis bank to produce
more refined sixteen-bank
decomposition. This process is
repeated until 64-band decomposition
is achieved.
The WSQ decoder reverses the process
above to reproduce the finger print
image from compressed data. The
Huffman decoder first recovers the
quantized DWT coefficients. Through
the de quantizes, approximation of the
original floating point format of the
DWT coefficients obtained and the
coefficients are feed to an inverse
DWT to reconstruct the finger print
image.
 4

predict an explosion in the number of

5. Applications
The Conceptual Design of a
Fingerprint based Identifier
¨ Verification of driver-license
authenticity and license validity check
applications of the fingerprint
technology to important industries
including network security and
protection, smart money, ATM
transaction, military installations,
airports and other secure facilities.

Verifying the matching between driver

fingerprint and the fingerprint features
stored on the license assures that the
driver is indeed the person that the
license is issued for. This task can be
done on-site where the fingerprint
features obtained from the driver by
live scanning is compared with the
features magnetically stored on the
driver license. Current "smart card"
technology allows abundant memory
capacity to store the features on card.
A driver/ license match means that the
license indeed belongs to the driver,
this, however does no warranty that the
driver license is not falsified. To check
for validity of the driver license the
police officer has the option to make
additional inquiry against the database.
In this case license validity check will
result.

6.Conclusion

We have presented the overview of the

finger print technology which include
primarily the scanner, the classification
of fingerprint image in the database,
the matching algorithms and the
compression\decompression algorithm
standardized by the FBI. Certain
standard perhaps might be needed for
this area before major commercial
system applications can be
implemented. An application which is
a part of the fingerprint based
biometric systems for commercial
driver license has been shown. Once
the standards and compliance
procedures are in place, one can