A Fingerprint Inpainting Technique Using Improved Partial Differential Equation Methods

摘要

In an automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS), fingerprint inpainting is a critical step in the preprocessing procedures. Because partially fouled, breaking or scratched latent fingerprint is difficult to be correctly matched to a known fingerprint. However, fingerprint restoration proved to be a particularly challenging problem because conventional image restoration schemes can not be directly applied to fingerprint due to the unique ridge and valley structures in typical fingerprint images. Based on partial differential equations algorithm, this paper presents a fingerprint restoration algorithm composing gradient and orientation field. According to gradient and orientation field of the known pixel points, different weights are used in different orientation field in the restoration process. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed restoration algorithm can effectively reduce the false feature points.