A benchmark 3D fingerprint database

Fingerprint biometric is one of the most successful biometrics applied in both forensic law enforcement and security applications. Recent developments in fingerprint acquisition technology have resulted in touchless live scan devices that generate 3D representation of fingerprints, and thus can overcome the deformation and smearing problems caused by conventional contact-based acquisition techniques. However, there are yet no 3D full fingerprint databases with their corresponding 2D prints for fingerprint biometric research. This paper presents a 3D fingerprint database we have established in order to investigate the 3D fingerprint biometric comprehensively. It consists of 3D fingerprints as well as their corresponding 2D fingerprints captured by two commercial fingerprint scanners from 150 subjects in Australia. Besides, we have tested the performance of 2D fingerprint verification, 3D fingerprint verification, and 2D to 3D fingerprint verification. The results show that more work is needed to improve the performance of 2D to 3D fingerprint verification. In addition, the database is expected to be released publicly in late 2014.