Document Type

Dissertation

Date of Award

Fall 1-31-1998

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy in Computing Sciences - (Ph.D.)

Department

Computer and Information Science

First Advisor

Daochuan Hung

Second Advisor

James A. McHugh

Third Advisor

Peter A. Ng

Fourth Advisor

Frank Y. Shih

Fifth Advisor

Nirwan Ansari

Sixth Advisor

Frederic P. Fischer

Abstract

Fingerprints can be classified into millions of groups by quantitative measurements of their new representations - Fault-Line Analytic Graphs (FLAG), which describe the relationship between ridge flows and singular points. This new model is highly mathematical, therefore, human interpretation can be reduced to a minimum and the time of identification can be significantly reduced.

There are some well known features on fingerprints such as singular points, cores and deltas, which are global features which characterize the fingerprint pattern class, and minutiae which are the local features which characterize an individual fingerprint image. Singular points are more important than minutiae when classifying fingerprints because the geometric relationship among the singular points decide the type of fingerprints.

When the number of fingerprint records becomes large, the current methods need to compare a large number of fingerprint candidates to identify a given fingerprint. This is the result of having a few synthetic types to classify a database with millions of fingerprints. It has been difficult to enlarge the minter of classification groups because there was no computational method to systematically describe the geometric relationship among singular points and ridge flows. In order to define a more efficient classification method, this dissertation also provides a systematic approach to detect singular points with almost pinpoint precision of 2x2 pixels using efficient algorithms.

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.