Minutiae extraction scheme for fingerprint recognition systems

A complete minutiae extraction scheme for automatic fingerprint recognition systems is presented. The proposed method uses improving alternatives for the image enhancement process, leading consequently to an increase in the reliability in the minutiae extraction task. In the first stages, image normalization and the orientation field of the fingerprint are calculated. The local orientation of the ridges serve as parameter for the next processing stages. Details of the adaptive morphological filtering used for ridge extraction and background noise elimination are described. Evaluation results are obtained from both inked and scanned fingerprints. Conclusions in terms of Goodness Index (GI), which compares the results obtained by automatic minutiae extraction with manually extracted ones, are provided in order to test the global performance of this approach.