DIAST variability illuminated thermal and visible ear images datasets

As the research in ear biometrics grows, there is a need to have a publicly available ear images database for researchers to test and validate their methods. There are many available ear databases captured in visible light domain. However, images in those databases are mostly acquired in a controlled environment, not in naturally illuminated environments. Up to the point of writing, there is no thermalbased ear image dataset available for research usage. In this paper, we introduce our ear image datasets that were captured in both visible and thermal domain. We present the detailed process of image acquisition, post-processing, and preparation of the ear datasets. The ear dataset consists of 2,200 images captured from 55 subjects in five different illumination conditions, ranging from 2 lux to 10,700 lux, measured using lux meter.