Human Identification via Dental Panoramic Images Using Simple Features

In mass disasters, quick identification of the victims is important even in rescuing the survivors. Teeth are one of the hard parts of the human body, which are more resistant to decay and destruction than other biometric modalities, and due to the variety of numbers, types, and shapes, they are considered a suitable option for identification. Due to the lack of Panoramic dental images from people before their death, the number of database images for training today’s modern identification systems is very limited which reduces the accuracy of recognition. In this article, three relatively time-robust features, the number of teeth, the number and position of restored teeth, and the interdental distances are used for identification. For the independence of identification to the variety of processes and the angle of photographs, we use spatial histograms of empty tooth areas as feature vectors. By comparing the Euclidean distance, the images of the data set can be recovered with a similarity of more than 85% to the input image, which is an acceptable accuracy for the simple and easy access of the features. Considering the expert’s role in the final decision, this system helps facilitate and accelerate identification.