A combination model for orientation field of fingerprints

Orientation field is a global feature of fingerprints that is very important in automatic fingerprint identification systems (AFIS). Establishing an accurate and concise model for orientation fields will not only improve the performance of orientation estimation, but also make it feasible to apply orientation information in the matching process. In this paper, a novel model for the orientation field of fingerprints is proposed. We use a polynomial model to approximate the orientation field globally and a point-charge model at each singular point to improve the approximation locally. These two models are combined together by a weight function. Experimental results are provided to illustrate the fact that this combination model is more accurate and robust with respect to noise compared with the previous works. The application of the model is discussed at the end. (C) 2003 Pattern Recognition Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.