A Systematic Algorithm for Fingerprint Image Quality Assessment

The fingerprint image quality is a key factor on the match results since it will cause spurious and missed minutiae when matching with the low quality images. It is important to estimate the image quality to guide the feature extraction and matching. In this paper we investigate the specifications that can reflect the image quality such as orientation coherence, core position and so on. We define a quasi core as a stable point to examine the validity of the captured position. We apply the idea of penalty function in the optimization theory to combine the specifications to get a quality score. The method is robust since it investigates the quality specifications entirely. The testing results on FVC database are given to verify the feasibility and effectiveness.