The occurrence of fingerprint characteristics as a two-dimensional poisson process

The individuality of n fingerprint is based on the configuration of occurences of the ten Galton characteristics ( ridge endings, forks, etc. ). A model ( Osterburg, Parthasarthy, Raghavan, Sclove, 1977 ) for the occurence of these characteristics, in terms of a grid of cells, is further developed. The occurence of the characteristics is modelled as a two-dimensional multivariate Poisson process. This approach allows one to treat multiple occurrences in a more satisfying way than in Osterburg, Parthasarathy, Raghavan and Sclove ( 1977 ) or Sclove ( 1978 )