Modified Principal Curves Based Fingerprint Minutiae Extraction and Pseudo Minutiae Detection

It is di±cult but crucial for minutiae extraction and pseudo minutiae deletion of low quality ̄ngerprint images in auto ̄ngerprint identi ̄cation systems. Traditional methods based on thinning images or gray-level images are, however, susceptible to noise. Reference 14 indicated that principal curves based ̄ngerprint minutiae extraction was feasible to overcome the drawback, but the extended polygonal line (EPL) principal curves algorithm used in the paper extracted the principal curves ine®ectively. As the ̄ngerprint data sets are usually large, the original EPL principal curves algorithm is time-consuming. Meanwhile, scattered ̄ngerprint data lead to the deviation of ̄ngerprint skeleton. In this paper, the algorithm is modi ̄ed, and a ̄ngerprint minutiae extraction and pseudo minutiae detection method based on principal curves is proposed. Experimental results show that the modi ̄ed EPL principal curves algorithm outperforms the original EPL algorithm both in e±ciency and quality, and the proposed minutiae extraction method outperforms the methods proposed by Miao under noise conditions.