An Evaluation of Iris Pattern Representations

The success of an iris recognition algorithm is partially dependent upon the iris pattern representation computed during feature extraction. Some algorithms in the literature represent iris texture by applying bandpass Alter banks to the segmented iris region. However, the selection of a bandpass filter form, as well as the particular instantiations of that form, are often presented as arbitrary choices. In this paper, we evaluate multiple filter candidates and compare the discriminative information provided by their responses. Discrimination is measured on a set of reference iris images drawn from multiple datasets. After preliminary analysis of the best filter type, we conduct iterative optimization over the parameters of a filter bank to search for the best possible iris pattern representation. Finally, we give some sample recognition results using the selected filter bank.