Fingerprint image enhancement using multiple filters

Haroon Shams; Tariqullah Jan; Amjad Ali Khalil; Naveed Ahmad; Abid Munir; Ruhul Amin Khalil

doi:10.7717/peerj-cs.1183

Fingerprint image enhancement using multiple filters

PeerJ Comput Sci. 2023 Jan 3:9:e1183. doi: 10.7717/peerj-cs.1183. eCollection 2023.

Authors

Haroon Shams¹, Tariqullah Jan¹, Amjad Ali Khalil¹, Naveed Ahmad², Abid Munir³, Ruhul Amin Khalil¹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Engineering & Technology Peshawar, Peshawar, Pakistan.
² College of Computer and Information Sciences, Prince Sultan University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
³ Department of Electronic Engineering, The Islamia University of Bahawalpur, Bahawalpur, Pakistan.

Abstract

Biometrics is the measurement of an individual's distinctive physical and behavioral characteristics. In comparison to traditional token-based or knowledge-based forms of identification, biometrics such as fingerprints, are more reliable. Fingerprint images recorded digitally can be affected by scanner noise, incorrect finger pressure, condition of the finger's skin (wet, dry, or abraded), or physical material it is scanned from. Image enhancement algorithms applied to fingerprint images remove noise elements while retaining relevant structures (ridges, valleys) and help in the detection of fingerprint features (minutiae). Amongst the most common image enhancement filters is the Gabor filter, however, given their restricted maximum bandwidth as well as limited range of spectral information, it falls short. We put forward a novel method of fingerprint image enhancement using a combination of a diffusion-coherence filter and a 2D log-Gabor filter. The log-Gabor overcomes the limitations of the Gabor filter while Coherence Diffusion mitigates noise elements within fingerprint images. Implementation is done on the FVC image database and assessed via visual comparison with coherence diffusion used disjointedly and with the Gabor filter.

Keywords: Biometric; Coherence diffusion filter; Fingerprint; Gabor filter; Image enhancement; Log-Gabor filter.

Grants and funding

This article was funded by the College of Computer and Information Sciences at Prince Sultan University, Saudi Arabia. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.