Poor Quality Fingerprint Recognition Based on Wave Atom Transform

Fingerprint is considered the most practical biometrics due to some specific features which make them widely accepted. Reliable feature extraction from poor quality fingerprint images is still the most challenging problem in fingerprint recognition system. Extracting features from poor fingerprint images is not an easy task. Recently, Multi-resolution transforms techniques have been widely used as a feature extractor in the field of biometric recognition. In this paper we develop a complete and an efficient fingerprint recognition system that can deal with poor quality fingerprint images. Identification of poor quality fingerprint images needs reliable preprocessing stage, in which an image alignment, segmentation, and enhancement processes are performed. We improve a popular enhancement technique by replacing the segmentation algorithm with another new one. We use Waveatom transforms in extracting distinctive features from the enhanced fingerprint images. The selected features are matched throw K-Nearest neighbor classifier techniques. We test our methodology in 114 subjects selected from a very challenges database; CASIA; and we achieve a high recognition rate of about 99.5%

Textural features for fingerprint liveness detection

The main topic ofmy research during these three years concerned biometrics and in particular the Fingerprint Liveness Detection (FLD), namely the recognition of fake fingerprints. Fingerprints spoofing is a topical issue as evidenced by the release of the latest iPhone and Samsung Galaxy models with an embedded fingerprint reader as an alternative to passwords. Several videos posted on YouTube show how to violate these devices by using fake fingerprints which demonstrated how the problemof vulnerability to spoofing constitutes a threat to the existing fingerprint recognition systems. Despite the fact that many algorithms have been proposed so far, none of them showed the ability to clearly discriminate between real and fake fingertips. In my work, after a study of the state-of-the-art I paid a special attention on the so called textural algorithms. I first used the LBP (Local Binary Pattern) algorithm and then I worked on the introduction of the LPQ (Local Phase Quantization) and the BSIF (Binarized Statistical Image Features) algorithms in the FLD field. In the last two years I worked especially on what we called the “user specific” problem. In the extracted features we noticed the presence of characteristic related not only to the liveness but also to the different users. We have been able to improve the obtained results identifying and removing, at least partially, this user specific characteristic. Since 2009 the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering of the University of Cagliari and theDepartment of Electrical and Computer Engineering of the ClarksonUniversity have organized the Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition (LivDet). I have been involved in the organization of both second and third editions of the Fingerprint Liveness Detection Competition (LivDet 2011 and LivDet 2013) and I am currently involved in the acquisition of live and fake fingerprint that will be inserted in three of the LivDet 2015 datasets

Detection of Singular Points from Fingerprint Images Using an Innovative Algorithm

Fingerprint scrutiny is typically based on the location and pattern of detected singular points in the images. These singular points (cores and deltas) not only represent the characteristics of local ridge patterns but also determine the topological structure (i.e., fingerprint type) and largely influence the orientation field. In this report, there is an innovative algorithm for singular points detection. After an initial detection using the conventional Poincare Index method, a so-called DORIVAC feature is used to remove spurious singular points. Then, the optimal combination of singular points is selected to minimize the difference between the original orientation field and the model-based orientation field reconstructed using the singular points. A core-delta relation is used as a global constraint for the final selection of singular points. Keywords: Orientation field, Poincare´ Index, Singular points, topological structur

A new approach to face recognition using Curvelet Transform

Multiresolution tools have been profusely employed in face recognition. Wavelet Transform is the best known among these multiresolution tools and is widely used for identification of human faces. Of late, following the success of wavelets a number of new multiresolution tools have been developed. Curvelet Transform is a recent addition to that list. It has better directional ability and effective curved edge representation capability. These two properties make curvelet transform a powerful weapon for extracting edge information from facial images. Our work aims at exploring the possibilities of curvelet transform for feature extraction from human faces in order to introduce a new alternative approach towards face recognition

Combining and Steganography of 3D Face Textures

One of the serious issues in communication between people is hiding information from others, and the best way for this, is deceiving them. Since nowadays face images are mostly used in three dimensional format, in this paper we are going to steganography 3D face images, detecting which by curious people will be impossible. As in detecting face only its texture is important, we separate texture from shape matrices, for eliminating half of the extra information, steganography is done only for face texture, and for reconstructing 3D face, we can use any other shape. Moreover, we will indicate that, by using two textures, how two 3D faces can be combined. For a complete description of the process, first, 2D faces are used as an input for building 3D faces, and then 3D textures are hidden within other images.Comment: 6 pages, 10 figures, 16 equations, 5 section

2-D Prony-Huang Transform: A New Tool for 2-D Spectral Analysis

This work proposes an extension of the 1-D Hilbert Huang transform for the analysis of images. The proposed method consists in (i) adaptively decomposing an image into oscillating parts called intrinsic mode functions (IMFs) using a mode decomposition procedure, and (ii) providing a local spectral analysis of the obtained IMFs in order to get the local amplitudes, frequencies, and orientations. For the decomposition step, we propose two robust 2-D mode decompositions based on non-smooth convex optimization: a "Genuine 2-D" approach, that constrains the local extrema of the IMFs, and a "Pseudo 2-D" approach, which constrains separately the extrema of lines, columns, and diagonals. The spectral analysis step is based on Prony annihilation property that is applied on small square patches of the IMFs. The resulting 2-D Prony-Huang transform is validated on simulated and real data.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure