Extracting and Enhancing the Core Area in Fingerprint Images

An Automatic Fingerprint Identification System (AIFS) plays a major role in forensic applications such as criminal identification, ATM card verification, etc. The fingerprint enhancement is essential in the issues of AIFS to ensure robust performance. This paper describes the design and implementation of fingerprint enhancement in two stages: Extraction of high ridge curvature area (core) and enhancing the core block. This enhancement algorithm is concentrated on enhancing the block, around the core block for two reasons: Rich minutiae exist close around the core point, Absence of delta point in certain fingerprint images. This feature of enhancing core block is essential for fast and robust performance of fingerprint verification / identification.